The Town Dumpster Diving Analysis

The saying, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” is quite known to everyone. Many people know and are aware of this saying, but may interpret it very differently. In the essays, “The Town Dump” and “On Dumpster Diving”, the authors, Wallace Stegner and Lars Eigner agree that some things people throw away do actually have value. Though the authors agree on the sense that “trash” may be valuable, and things should be appreciated, they agree for entirely different reasons. Wallace Stegner grew up in a young town named Whitemud, in which he described as exciting and full of wonder. Throughout the essay the trash comes together piece by piece to create a somewhat story of the towns history. The dump “contained relics of every individual who had ever lived there”, which helped Stegner to learn more about his town & the people that lived there. (Wallace 30-31) Stegner goes to show that the dump is actually very

In “The Town Dump”, Stegner goes to show that he cared more about what he can learn hysterically and factually from what he finds, as he says, “I think I learned more from the town dump than I learned from the school; more about people, more about how life is lived, not elsewhere but here, not in other times but now.” (Wallace 33) Stegner said that a “community may be as well judged by what it throws away.” (Wallace) Lars Eigner has more of a scolding tone when he says “ the area I frequent is inhibited by many affluent colleges students” (Eigner) and ..” the student does not know that, and since its daddy’s money, the student decides not to take a chance.” (Eigner) Eigner uses those quotes to show his dislike for the unappreciativeness of the college students and their lack of being resourceful. Though Stegner sticks more to the facts and things he learns about people , Lars finds no story, and just scolds and dislikes the fact that people are so