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Motif
Explanation and Analysis—Breeding and Heredity:
Throughout How the Other Half Lives, Riis focuses on the idea that evil, or immoral behavior, can be passed down genetically from parent to child. This fixation on heredity occurs as a motif throughout the text, as early as the introduction:
If it shall appear that the sufferings and the sins of the "other half," and the evil they breed, are but as a just punishment upon the community that gave it no other choice, it will be because that is the truth.
Note the specific use of the term "breed" in this passage, intended to imply that the children produced by impoverished people will bear the same "evil" that their parents do. In fact, this passage implies that the only thing the tenements can produce is evil. This viewpoint is solidified throughout the text, as exemplified by the following passage from Chapter 15, aptly entitled "The Problem of the Children":
The problem of the children becomes, in these swarms, to the last degree perplexing [. . .]. For, be it remembered, these children with the training they receive—or do not receive—with the instincts they inherit and absorb in their growing up, are to be our future rulers.
It is key to note that Riis was not the sole proprietor of these beliefs, nor the sole perpetrator of this heredity-based rhetoric. In fact, such notions were commonly held by eugenicists and social reformers at the time, so Riis seems to have incorporated these ideas into his social analysis, ultimately undermining any attempt to approach the situation with empathy.
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