In Barbara Ehrenreich's investigative memoir Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, Ehrenreich herself attempts to investigate whether the minimum wage is truly a livable wage by taking on low-paying work in three different locations across America. His answer, unsurprisingly, is no. By satirizing the often corrupt employers with whom he works and developing humility through self-deprecation, Ehrenreich recounts his experiences with a sense of levity, largely free from a romanticized or pitiful portrayal of the poor. However, he does not allow humor to obscure the horror of poverty, honestly recounting his sense of fear, misery and futility. This helps create a nuanced and humane portrait of the poor, which lends gravitas to his argument for socioeconomic reform. Ehrenreich compounds this by echoing Marxist language and liberal sentiment everywhere, rallying liberal support for change while drawing connections between real poor experience and the political agenda. By making his bias clear from the start and using Marxist language to turn his narrative into an argument, Ehrenreich narrows his audience to those who already support a minimum wage increase as a policy. This allows Ehrenreich's narrative to be the main component of his argument, adding urgency to his agenda by humanizing the poor and revealing the harsh economic reality of poverty. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Ehrenreich enters his project and begins his novel with a clear prejudice: that a minimum wage is not a livable wage. This preconceived thesis restricts her audience to the liberal upper class, allowing her to specify her style of argumentation so that it is most effective. Although Ehrenreich approaches his project with some scientific curiosity, he does so with a tone of clear skepticism, asking, "How can anyone live on the wages available to the unskilled?"(1). Furthermore, although he tries to temper disbelief by acknowledging the possibility of some “hidden economies” of the poor, he also describes “the desperation of being a wage slave” before he even begins his project (5). He also acknowledges his predilection for “Marxist rants,” which likely alienate conservative readers but gain support from educated liberals (9). In this way, Ehrenreich clarifies his own liberal position, without clearly addressing more conservative counterarguments, narrowing his intended audience to liberals. Speaking to an audience that already supports his agenda, Ehrenreich's goal then becomes adding a sense of humanity to his political cause, which he accomplishes by using metonymy, synecdoche, and body metaphors to demonstrate how poverty degrades his class self medium-high. The first thing Ehrenreich describes about his leap into the “parallel universe” of poverty is the reduction of the self; as a waitress, Barbara is not the person, but, instead, “baby,” “darling,” “blonde,” or, more commonly, “girl”” (13). This exemplification of both metonymy and synecdoche shows how service work cuts people into parts, and while this is actually dehumanizing, the fact that this is happening to Ehrenreich (whose humanity, as a member of the upper class, seems implicit) he forces his class readers to identify their own humanity with that of the poor. By acknowledging these stereotypes and at the same time recounting his own human experience as a poor person, Ehrenreich forces his audience to unite..