Foster’s life was a constant struggle against tyrant employers and hazardous working conditions. He describes several experiences that contain graphic tales of hard times and hard luck. Foster tries to organize strikes and unions to create higher pay and safer working conditions. While he is working for the betterment of all workers, his mission becomes clear as he alludes to his distaste for capitalism. A fellow worker takes on the role of employer and it is from this experience where Foster infers the relationship between one’s occupation and their “social outlook” (596). I find this ideal flawed because our society allows people to succeed and rise to the top. A person in the lowliest of positions may have the greatest outlook on life, and when combined with capitalism the possibilities are endless.

Foster describes the working conditions in jobs he has held with convincing realism. As

he describes working in the fertilizer plant, I could imagine the stench that must have reeked throughout the building. “Within the place garbage was indiscriminately littered about and allowed to decompose, and I often saw whole sections of the dumping floor a living, creeping carpet of maggots” (590). This thought will have people waking up out of their sleep screaming. If a man is willing to put up with conditions such as these, it is obvious that there is not much else to choose from. From job to job, the working conditions he faces truly depicts how desperate for work he was.

Some topics in this essay:
Critique Foster’s, job job, , constant struggle, betterment workers,