“The Illusion and Impact of Social Class in Sarah Smarsh’s Heartland”

.  For this assignment, students are expected to
write about the entire book, not just the first 30 or the first 130 pages.  Your essay needs to cover material and
connect topics from the whole book and not just cover or write until you get to
four pages.  To encourage this, your essay
must include short relevant
quotes from three different sections of Smarsh’s Heartland book.  The first
section is the prologue to chapter 3; the second section is chapter 4 and
chapter 5; and the final third section is chapter 6 to chapter 7.  Thus, section one is pages 1-84; section two
is pages 85-208; and the third section is pages 209-288.  Below are the topics to choose from.  Choose ONLY one. 
1.  Smarsh emphasized the importance of
family.  Provide evidence of the many
ways in which family shaped her life.  Discuss
examples of ways she referenced the importance of her family. 
2.  Explore the theme of poverty.  Discuss the many instances in which she or
characters in the book were struck back into cycles of poverty.  What were some of the ways in which Smarsh
and characters in her book tried to escape these cycles of poverty. 
3.  Describe the treatment of women in Smarsh’s
book.  Provide examples of the positive
and negative aspects of women in the book. 
How did where she lived influence women’s lives in her book?  What outside forces kept women down in her
book down?
4.  Sarah Smarsh has a vexed relationship
with the idea of social class, or socioeconomic status. In Chapter 1, she
recognizes “[something about my family was peculiar and willfully ignored in
the modern story of our country. My best attempt at explaining it was, “I grew
up on a farm.” But it was much more than that. It was income, culture, access,
language, work, education, food—the stuff of life itself” (Smarsh 14). In
Chapter 4, Smarsh writes: “Class, like race and all the other ways we divide
ourselves up to make life miserable, is what I’d later learn is a ‘social
construct.’ That’s what my family calls bullshit, and there are places in a
person that bullshit can’t touch” (136). By the end of the book, Smarsh states
unequivocally that “[class is an illusion with real consequences” (282). In an
essay, work through these differing representations of class and describe what
you think social class is and the impact it has on people’s lives. Does the
definition of class change for Smarsh, or does it just become clearer? How can
something that is an illusion have real consequences?  Consider the specific elements that define
social class and how one becomes identified with one class or another. Do not
use a dictionary definition, use Smarsh’s text to develop your ideas. Of
course, you should also draw on your personal experience to help develop your
points. (Attributed to the 2019 Loyola University Maryland Common Text: A
Resource for Students).  [This fourth essay
topic was one of the essay prompts for the One Book Community Read program contest
for Sarah Smarsh’s Heartland from last semester, which is why it is a
little different than the other three.] 
Your essay
should have an introduction and a concluding paragraph.  In addition, you should have a main thesis
you are proving.  Do not just write about
your topic but develop a thesis you will argue. 
Make your thesis clear to the reader in the introduction and the
conclusion paragraphs.  Do not over-quote
in your essay. While you are required to use quotes from three different
sections of the Smarsh book, try not to use long quotations that are longer
than two lines in your essay (about 35 words). 
You must use quotation marks anytime you copy something that someone
else has written even if it is only a phrase or a single sentence.  Failure to use quotation marks constitutes
plagiarism.