Comparing Wallace Stegner's 'The Town Dumpster Diving'

Learning From Junk
Who knew a person could learn so much from junk? Wallace Stegner's "The Town Dump" and Lars Eighner's "On Dumpster Diving" are two good examples of lessons learned from garbage. They both focus on junk, but they are very different stories and teach different lessons.
"The Town Dump" is a written account of Wallace Stegner's fond childhood memories visiting the dump near his hometown. He shows through his essay that he learned a lot from the dump. He and his friends considered the dump as an "archaeological site" or history museum of the town. It held objects that could tell the children a lot about the owners, the people who lived in the town, and even about their own lives. He found that he could learn so much just by sifting through the junk. Stegner stated, "For a community may be as well judged by what it throws away, what is has to throw away, and what it chooses to, as by any other evidence."
"On Dumpster Diving" also has lessons to be shared.
Eighner's essay is more "how to" as opposed to Stegner's memoir. In the essay he coaches the reader on how to survive by living out of dumpsters. He moves smoothly through a variety of topics such as what is safe to eat and drink, the stages a person goes experiences when "scavenging," different types of "dumpster divers," and personal past experiences. From these things, Eighner claims to have learned two lessons: one being that you should only take what you need and nothing else. In other words, if it is not useful, it has no value. The second lesson is the idea of materialism and how he finds that memories and sentiments last longer than objects. This lesson is differs greatly compared to "The Town Dump" because Stegner treasures the items found in the dump, while Eighner would have left the junk and remembered their
significance.
Eighner takes a very matter-of-fact approach to his essay. He writes very intelligently as if he had been well educated at one point in time. It is very well organized and is very easy to read and understand because of its nice flow. He begins the essay by telling the origin of the word "dumpster". This can be compared to Stegner's essay in which he also begins with history. Eighner then talks about how he first became homeless and goes on to say he has learn a lot from his experience and proceeds to tell the reader the on how to go about becoming a good dumpster diver. The essay comes to a close when Eighner shares the lessons he has learned with the reader.
While Eighner's essay is more straightforward, Stegner takes a more sentimental approach. Like Eighner's, Stegner's essay is also well structured and easy to read; he begins with the dump's history, then goes on to tell of his different experiences there, and ends with a lesson learned. He portrays the dump as an almost mystical place, while Eighner simply tells it how it is. Both essays do a fine job of expressing their ideas about junk. However, Stegner's seemed to be more successful because he writes like his activity is so normal when it is in fact, unusual. This catches the reader off guard. And while "The Town Dump" is a nice sentimental piece, "Dumpster Diving" proved to be a much more enjoyable read.