Toni Morrison's Work Ethic in "The Work You Do, the Person You Are" Ayelén Victoria Rodríguez 12th Grade

Maintaining her style, Toni Morrison goes over the struggles of class differences in her essay, "The Work You Do, the Person You Are." She produces a reflective piece that puts in evidence the strong mentality and craving she had for mattering, of achieving important things, since she was a child. Having been the first black woman writer to win the Nobel Prize of literature, Morrison goes back to her beginnings to show the readers what work ethics had led her to such success, stating, as the title implies, that the work one does never defines the person one is.

The text begins with the child being grateful for being paid two dollars for doing what she considered as very few chores in the house. This can be understood when she says “all I had to do for two dollars...”. We can see the clear difference between this beginning at the house and the end at it, which seems to be as if she is being exploited by the amount of work she is given, which in the end turns out to be even harmful physically “after pushing the piano my arms and legs hurt so badly”.

Toni Morrison is also able to make an impact on the reader, and realize the social differences by the way the child describes the house where she works and how her patroness is...