The Claims of Poverty: Literature, Culture, and Ideology in Late Medieval England

Epilogue: Nickel and Dimed: Poverty Polemic Medieval and Modern

EPILOGUE Nickel and Dimed Poverty Polemic Medieval and Modern In late medieval England, writers interrogated the meaning of poverty with great urgency. In many ways, their dynamic and intricate writings reveal how increasing anxiety about poverty was a matter of historical specificity marked by a radically different post-plague economy, a flourishing ideology of antifraternalism, and a growing concern with the regulation of agricultural and urban labor. Yet, the literature of this period also speaks to many modern anxieties about poverty—an issue that, in its continued presence, signals a connection to the medieval past, disproving familiar narratives of modern progress and enlightenment. In addition to transgressing vast historical boundaries as a persistent economic reality, poverty also still provokes epistemological and ethical challenges that were operative more than five hundred years ago. As a subject of literary inquiry poverty continues to transform the work of writing and reading into a fundamentally ethical practice. It remains true that how readers interpret the signs of poverty and discern the presence of need are crucial acts that have power to influence a community’s charitable practices, its definition of justice, and its conception of itself as a social body. It may seem surprising to argue that there are similarities in medieval and modern approaches to poverty given the massive economic, political , and social transformations that have come to make the medieval 275 past at times seem almost illegible to readers and students of the twenty- first century. Indeed, we live in an enormously different world born out of the death of feudalism, the triumph of capitalism, and the legacy of the Reformation—to name only a few examples of cultural change. Despite these highly significant transformations, one can nonetheless find haunting continuities in the ways that poverty captures our ethical imagination and forces us to consider our relationships to other human beings . In the pages that follow, I want to pursue some of these continuities by offering a reading of Barbara Ehrenreich’s recent work, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America. When placed in dialogue with texts from late medieval England, Ehrenreich’s book can be seen in a new light, emerging as a text that reveals how poverty provokes enduring cultural anxieties even in the face of great historical change. Before exploring these substantive connections, however, it is important to give a brief overview of the book and to describe its notoriety in a much more recent past. In Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich leaves behind her life as a writer and attempts to make a living as a low-wage laborer. Over the course of three months, she lives in three different cities, working as a waitress, a maid, a nursing home assistant (on weekends), and a retail clerk. In each case, it proves impossible for Ehrenreich to cover her expenses, and she repeatedly finds herself beset by poverty. Written as a personal account that seeks to translate the genuine experience of need into an entertaining and compelling narrative, Nickel and Dimed is arguably one of the most important texts discussing poverty in twentieth-century America. As a winner of various awards, Nickel and Dimed has spent more than one hundred weeks on the New York Times best-seller list since its initial publication in 2001.1 It has also garnered fame as a popular choice for university-sponsored summer reading programs.2 The text, furthermore, was adapted into a play that toured nationally in 2003, winning a Los Angeles Drama Critics’ Circle Award. While Ehrenreich’s book has garnered a great deal of praise, it has also prompted a great deal of conflict, yet neither the book’s critics nor its champions have recognized how Nickel and Dimed participates in a long legacy of debates about the moral and interpretive problems endemic to poverty. When read in light of the issues and texts discussed 276 The Claims of Poverty in the previous chapters of this book, Nickel and Dimed becomes an exploration of familiar, enduring questions: How is poverty defined? For whom can it be a legitimate experience? Which people are deserving of aid? In raising these questions, the book—and the controversy it provoked—engage with other more specific issues central to medieval conflicts about poverty. For example, when Ehrernreich herself descends into the low-wage workforce, her text exposes the continued appeal of voluntary poverty, a...