Stupid Rich Bastards by Laurel

Stupid Rich Bastards by Laurel Johnson Black

The short story "Stupid Rich Bastards" by Laurel Johnson Black is about a man that grew up in Massachusetts with a family that dreams of being lifted away from poverty someday. The man narrated his life with an emphasis on how important language is to him -- that the language that people use defines what and who they are. The context of word "Language" in the story is used by the narrator as a means to identify people and put them into two classes -- whether they are of the rich people's class or of the poor people's. The story shows that the narrator has a belief that the poor people and the rich people are so separated from each other because he associates them with two, dissimilar languages. This implies that for him the two classes will never be able to really understand and communicate with each other even if they tried. So, with this in mind, the narrator never mingles with the rich people too much unless considered necessary. This caused him to have minimal communication with the rich people and has affected him in several ways that ultimately lead him to not achieve his dream of lifting his family away from poverty.

In the short story, it is easy to see that the narrator portrays the rich people as a bunch of appalling people. If we look at all of the characters mentioned in the story, we will see that those who are not poor, excluding the narrator's teachers when he was young, are either angry or disgusted at the poor people and are a cause of suffering to the narrator and his family. Examples of such are the doctors, the lawyers, the insurance agents, the loan officers, the police, and town selectmen. The experiences with these rich people could be the very reason that all of them are labeled "stupid rich bastards" in the story and that the narrator sees them as terrible people. Anyhow, these characters are the reason why the narrator chooses to keep away from being like them in anyway and avoid having any communications with them. After all, he believes that these rich people do not share the same language with the poor.

Due to his lack of communication with the so-called "stupid rich bastards," the narrator of the story never saw the rich people's side of the story. The narrator talked about how it was not the poor people's fault that they are poor and how the rich people just kept on blocking their way out of poverty, but there was not any instance where he tries to make sure whether these are true or not. For him the rich people did not and will never understand the poor, so the narrator did not see any reason to keep in contact with them. They are the cause of all the poor people's sufferings and that is all that they are. So even when the narrator becomes a teacher and was able to work side-by-side with rich faculty members, he never gives a shot at really understanding them. He is only interested on how they act and talk and nothing more because he only wants to mimic them and not be like them. His lack of communication with them causes him to see the rich people as enemies -- the people that he and his poor people can never trust. This is a manifestation of how the narrator whole-heartedly accepted the concept that there is a barrier separating the poor people from the rich ones. and, for him, crossing this barrier is a very terrible thing to do.

The only successful people who the narrator really talked to and was able to see regularly are the teachers he has had when he was still young. To him, these teachers never really crossed the barrier but are merely bridges that connect the two territories, speaking both the language of the rich and of the poor. Because of this, the only ones that the narrator ever trusts aside from the poor people are his teachers. This paved the way for the narrator to make them an exception from the "stupid rich bastards" that do not understand the poor. For him his teachers are the only noble people outside the territory of the poor, standing between the "stupid rich bastards" and them. The narrator's vision of a good life is greatly influenced by these teachers. He even considered being like them someday.

But the narrator was not fully convinced that being a teacher would help him give his family a comfortable life. He judged that being a teacher would not help him in his pursuit of his dreams because his teachers, despite their knowledge and skills, still live in their poor town and drove rusty cars just like what his family had. This is another instance where the narrator judged by what he sees and thinks, not asking whether this is true or not. This is a manifestation of his fear of really communicating with people that are not poor. So, he decides to pursue professions other than teaching such as law and, after he failed, archeology, thinking that these will help him achieve his dreams.

The narrator respects his teachers but his experiences with them did not teach him the importance of understanding people expanding his social interaction in breaking free from the clutches of poverty. He still doesn't want to cross the barrier that separates the rich from the poor because, for him, to be one of the rich means betraying his family and his people. For him, the poor people's way of living is the only true way of living. This is ironic because he dreams of escaping poverty. And due to this belief, greatly magnified by his lack of communication with successful people, all he sees are his family's poverty, the rich people who caused them suffering, and his teachers. His dreams becomes limited by what his mind could comprehend -- and his mind does not accept any other way of living other than what he already had with his family. He had a vision of leaving the life of poverty but this vision is blurred and limited.