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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 5 page paper analyzes "Working Conditions," an excerpt from Elizabeth Stuart Phelps's book "The Silent Partner."
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_HVPhelps.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
which is from that book. Discussion "Working Conditions" is really an expos? of the horrible conditions in the factories of the time. By making it a fictional account, Phelps is
able to engage the readers sympathies more easily than if she had written a factual report. By creating characters instead of reporting actual events, she is able to paint a
picture of the hardships they face and the effect those hardships have on them that is extremely vivid. The protagonist of the story is Perley Kelso, a young woman who
wants to become a partner in her fathers business after he dies. But her fathers business partner, Hayle and Hayles son Maverick, to whom Perley is engaged, both laugh at
her; her only option it to become an investor - a "silent partner" - with no real influence on how the business is run. The business in question is the
Hayle and Kelso Mills. Perley is a woman of spirit and determination but she is ignorant of the conditions in the factory, and this excerpt is her discovery, through conversations
with the workers, of just how awful their lives are. They are underpaid, forced to work long hours (sometimes 4.30 a.m. to 8 p.m.), and the factories are breeding grounds
for diseases. The workers are constantly fatigued from the long hours, some rooms are too hot, others too cold, some dripping with water. The entire place is hellish, and Phelps
captures it very well. She has written the first part of the excerpt in second person ("You take your patient place") which is a very difficult perspective to handle well.
Yet she does it, and in doing so pulls the reader in and makes him/her a participant in the story, not merely an observer. She makes us feel what its
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