Compare and Contrast Paragraph

“After You, My dear Alphonse” vs. “Day Work”

The two stories, “After You, My dear Alphonse” and “Day Work”, are both about how
black people were once perceived as poor people. “After You, My dear Alphonse” is a story told
in the third person about a young black boy named Boyd and his white friend Johnny. When
Johnny’s mother offers Boyd hand-me-down clothes he does not understand why she does this.
Boyd is too young to realize that Johnny’s mother, Mrs. Wilson, assumes that because he is
black, he is poor. In Mrs. Wilsons mind she is being charitable, but by assuming Boyd is poor,
because of his race, she is actually making a racist judgement. In “Day Work” we see the same
racial judgement being made about Maggie. The difference is the story is from Maggie’s point
of view, and Maggie fully understands why people assume that she is poor. Maggie’s
understanding also allows her to stand-up for herself, and correct the people who have made
judgments based on her race. These two stories share a theme, but they have very different
characters, which causes the stories to greatly differ from each other.