The difference between urban and rural life

The book’s core thematic consideration relates to the experience of being poor in America. Even though the author’s primary focus is on the experience of being poor within the context of living a rural, agriculture-based lifestyle, many aspects of that specific situation can be seen as applying to a broader set of circumstances. There are several places in which the author identifies them as such, using a variety of both personal and research-based approaches to argue this particular point and reinforce this particular claim.

The author also discusses the country's health care system, and the way it has changed over the years, specifically in the direction of favoring those with money and with homes in urban communities. People in rural communities, she says, have become less and less able to access both health insurance and quality medical care, relying on traditional techniques and time for healing rather than on practices they have to pay for, or get insurance to pay for. She discusses how hard it is for people in her income situation to afford insurance and care, commenting that “it’s a hell of a thing to feel – to grow the food, serve the drinks, hammer the houses, and assemble the airplanes that bodies with more money eat and drink and occupy and board, while your own body can’t go to the doctor” (74).

Smarsh also notes that the urban Americans who were wealthier white persons who lived in cities, made decisions, and looked down on people like her. “They thought we didn’t exist anymore, when in fact we just existed in places they never went” (98).

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