College - Bread Givers

The chapter about Sara attending college was one of my favorite parts of the book. When she first arrives she is amazed at the large (to her) houses and happy, smiling town inhabitants. For the first time she is able to see people her own age in a completely different light. These students most likely had healthy home lives and parents that encourage their education. This is something that Sara has never known. Every decision she makes in order to better herself she must make alone, and fight alone. These other kids don't have to work as hard as she does, and probably don't have ironing jobs in order to support themselves.

"They had none of that terrible fight for bread and rent that I always saw in New York people's eyes. Their faces were not worn with the hunger for things they could never have in their lives. There was in them that sure, settled look of those who belong to the world in which they were born."

For Sara, she has never experienced this kind of belonging. I think this observation that she notices begins her down the next four year track of coming into her own. She has to struggle, as she always has, but in a new manor. She now has something tangible she is reaching for. She finally discovers her intense desire for knowledge and gains a beautiful self-confidence and self-awareness that she has never had before. The end of the chapter was all of her hard work finally coming to fruition. I felt proud of her for writing her story, not only because she won, but because she was honest and true to herself. She no longer required their recognition or praise, and that is precisely when she received it.

I've never experienced these feelings of isolation because I have never had to live in poverty. Although, I do pay for my school and bills and rent, etc. I admire her courage and perseverance, because I can not even imagine having to endure the lifelong "otherness" she must have felt.