Note: The student work that follows has added text (in all capitals) which should be read in place of any italicized text from the original. The original student text is, then, the normal text read with the italicized text included but not the capitalized text. The capitalized text has been added for several reasons among which were to provide added context for understanding, to expand the reader's understanding of the points of comparison and to provide transition between paragraphs.
Have you ever dug through a garbage can? MOST OF US WOULD REFUSE TO ROLL
UP OUR SLEEVES TO DIG THROUGH THE TRASH BUT Well in The Town Dump
by Wallace Stegner and On Dumpster Diving by Lars Eighner both of the
narrators are rather knowledgeable about the art of digging through trash.
EACH HAS SPENT SIGNIFICANT TIME, SIMILARLY DIGGING, AMONGST THE REFUSE OF
AMERICA, BUT, SEPARATED BY ALMOST A CENTURY, THEIR EXPERIENCES CAN BE READ
AS BAROMETERS OF OUR SOCIETY WHICH CAN BE KNOWN BY WHAT IT HAS THROWN AWAY.
These pieces of literature are definitely very similar but yet at the same
time different.
In On Dumpster Diving, the narrator shares with the reader the gift of how
to know if food is not too old, still edible when found in dumpsters. He explains
how college students unnecessarily throw out perfectly good food before vacation
periods or even spirits before a visit from their parents. He enlightens the
reader with tips on how to detect whether or not food had been tampered with.
Eighner is very satirical throughout, in fact he starts off by informing the
reader that he has written to Merriam-Webster about the meaning of the word
dumpster! HIS COMMENTARY FOCUSES OUR ATTENTION ON THE EXCESSIVE WASTEFULNESS
AND INEQUITABLE WEALTH DISTRIBUTION OF CONTEMPORARY AMERICA UNDER THE PRETENSE
OF OFFERING A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO RECYCLING.
FAR FROM PRACTICAL, Wallace writes about a memorable dump that after departing
from a town was the thing he remembered most clearly! A dump, of all things
to remember, maybe this is IS IMPORTANT because it HE spent
more time with it than with the people of the town. He describes rummaging
in dumps as archeological digs, where each item found reveals something about
the town history. One could incredibly find a lead casing that enclosed the
town's first telephone system or a piece of melted glass from a house fire.
NEARLY ALL THE ITEMS STEGNER RESCUED FROM THE DUMP AS A CHILD , INCLUDING
THAT BURNED AND BRUSIED VOLUME OF SHAKESPEARE WHICH THOUGH READABLE HELD LITTLE
BUT SENTIMENTAL VALUE, WERE, UNLIKE THE PREMATURE GARBAGE OF EIGHNER'S DUMPSTER,
USED UP. STEGNER'S GARBAGE HELD MAINLY NOSTALGIC VALUE, IN REFLECTION OF THE
FRONTIER OF NORTH AMERICA THAT ALL KNEW WAS FAST FADING.
EVEN THOUGH Both writingS are obviously about dumps, dumpsters and the things
people find in them, but they are in fact also very different. Eighner
is very satirical while Wallace almost writes with amazement at what can be
found. Dumpster Diving is much more of an informative to show how wasteful
society can be by revealing all the perfectly good food ITEMS found
in dumpsters while The Town Dump explores the stories each individual "artifact"
has to offer. CLEARLY, GARBAGE, AMERICA AND OUR VISION OF IT HAVE CHANGED
DURING THE LAPSE OF THE 20TH CENTURY.
