Beggarland by Alan Sillitoe
...ople hurrying to get in before the train left.” She feels sorry for the beggars and homeless but takes the easy way out and lives by the old proverb: out of eye, out of mind. Greta is a very normal down-to-earth girl trying to make a living. She is very creative and imaginative and the kids always enjoy being in her company like she also cares a lot about them. A lot of things make her very unique and different from the rest of the family, for example her language, style, class and behaviour. She can make a chore into a game and suddenly her and the 2 children are playing “Washing Up”. That’s one of the reasons why the kids adore her. Greta also cares a lot of the environments that surrounds her. She is not afraid to rub shoulders with people from the lower class of the society and tries to involve her self and the children in their surroundings. Jane on the other hand certainly does not like the idea of her children being involved with beggars or even play the game “Cardboard City” which is about being a beggar. When Angie and Tim, which are the names of the children, ask their mother if they are allowed to get some big boxes to use in the game she frowns. “No use moaning about what the world was coming to when it had come to it already,” she says (page 4, line 103). She thinks that it is beneath their class and it isn’t something you should fool around with. She finds it better to close the children’s eyes and ignore it. The difference in the two women’s values shines clearly through in dealing with the question of beggars, but also in the part of the short story where the children get dirty after playing in the flowerbeds. To Greta the beggar-issue is not a big deal. She has no objections if the children want to play beggars in “Cardboard City” and no objections if they should get dirty while playing in the garden. Then they should just go get washed up when finished. The children seem very innocent in this case. They are in a way stuck between the mother and Greta. It is very exiting for them to see this whole new world that has been hidden away for such a long time. They don’t become terrified or disgusted by this way of life like many adults would, they become attracted to it. When kids discover some new and exiting things it is logical that they transfer it to their games. Tim is the father and husband in the family. He has been married to Jane for seven years so Jane knows when he is not contented with her decisions. An example is when she hires Greta and he comes out with a sarcastic prejudiced comment: “Where did yo...