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#1. Examine the cartoon on page 12. What is the relationship between poverty and dreams? (Tim G.)

The relationship between poverty and dreams is that the less fortunate you are, the less chance you have of living your dream. We see that money has a direct affect on one’s chances to live their dreams when Arnold says, “Given the chance, my mother would have gone to college”(Alexie 11). The ‘chance’ in this quote refers to money. Her lack of money held her back from college, and her lack of education held her back from her dream of being a teacher. Another example of how poverty affects the dreams of people is seen when Arnold says, “They[His parents] never got the chance to be anything because nobody paid attention to their dreams”(Alexie 11). Here, chance refers to his parent’s ability to stand out from the crowd. Arnold’s parents were too poor to get a platform to advertise themselves and therefore never got seen as having potential by others. Overall, poverty affects the dreams of people in a horrible way by crippling the chances that the dreams will ever come to fruition.

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