Each poem had something bad to say about the menial jobs they talked about. Yet, with the exception or “Hard Work,” they all continued in the same or similar positions. The only divergent thought was expressed by “Hard Work” as well. While all of the poems had negative things to say about their positions or employers “Hard Work” alone suggested “destructive” acts as a way of coping with the frustration.

All the poems valued people over property. The speaker in “The Chimney Sweeper” expressed this by telling us if we “do [our] duty [we] need not fear harm.” In “Hard Work” compassion for the worker was inferred with the allegory of prison. “What I Wouldn’t Do” put this into words in describing the reason she did not like “selling subscriptions to TV Guide over the phone.” It was the “disappointment when they realized [she] wasn’t who they thought [she] was.” The “Shoplifters” themselves were valued over ethics and the store owner’s loss due to shoplifters.

The “candles [falling] from a nun’s sleeves” could be interpreted in several ways. It could be meant to devalue religion in general. It could also mean that all of us, even the most pious, have fallen and have need of a Savior.

In “Hard Work” one of the first lines suggested the value of hard work and manhood. “Hard work, my father said, was how you became a man. ”Ethical and moral boundaries were recognized and then broken by “[pissing] into the coke bottle and [putting] it back into the line.” Who or what does this get even with? The bottle, the Coke plant, or society who has

Some topics in this essay:
Reformation Christianity, TV Guide, Kennedy Smith, Chimney Sweeper”, John Geoghan’s, Wouldn’t Do”, “hard work”, “the chimney sweeper”, , duty fear harm”, bottle coke plant, shoplifters poem, duty fear, “righteous hurt”, tv guide, realized wasn’t was”, people measure, bottle coke, fear harm”, “the chimney, wasn’t was”,