Two worlds collide at an upper-class event, where a man working for a charity grovels for donations, and a millionaire French aristocrat looks for a cause that will make her seem altruistic.

A poor, ever-hopeful couple that imagines itself on the brink of a windfall suffers setback after setback, until the husband has a revelation about what in life holds real value.

A wealthy woman's ploy to flaunt her wealth is foiled by her old friend's seeming indifference to opulence - until they part, and the friend asks for money. The afternoon is ruined when the woman realizes that her obsession with money has ruined her outlook on life.

A group of working class people run a dangerous path toward a promised Elysium, and those who survive are rewarded with nothing they can appreciate or comprehend.

When an upstart young man dreams of bigger things than his job at the local mine, he finds his connection between his father and his best friend in peril.

A gay man is rejected by his father and thrown out of his home, which forces him to rebuild his life. Years later, the man realizes that his father was indirectly responsible for his success, and that he is surrounded by many deep and loving relationships.

A wealthy man in Chicago suddenly learns about the untimely death of a poor woman he'd been dating. Confronted with her child, whom he'd begun to develop a bond with, he must determine to what extent he will allow his greed to overcome his compassion.

An imaginary Black servant on a turn-of-the-century plantation ends up permanently changing the owner's fortunes — despite being a figment of his imagination.

A male stripper lives with his unemployed sister and cousin and their kids and his aunt, who remains cheery and optimistic in the face of every ill fortune, in a dangerous neighborhood. Then, his aunt dies and briefly comes back from the dead as a rapidly disintegrating ghoul with magical powers who bosses them around, determined they work toward a better life. He starts to dream of a better future, all the while wondering why others have so much when they have so little.

Compiling notes for an English essay, a sixteen-year-old girl recounts her middle-class upbringing, kleptomania, and eventual coercion into prostitution and assisting with drug use. After she suffers violence and abuse, she is eventually rescued — but the experience traumatizes her.