What does the tattered clothes signify?

In James Patrick Kinney’s poem ‘The Cold Within’, ‘tattered clothes’ (old and torn clothes) indicates that the man was very poor and couldn’t afford to buy enough new clothes to keep himself warm. This heightens the contrast between him and the rich man.

The term “tattered clothes” refers to torn clothes. This expression symbolises that the third person was a poor man who had little money to cover himself. The poor man shook his coat or hitches his coat as to make him warmer and when he saw the rich man his mind was filled with hatred.

The tattered clothes signify that the man was not wealthy enough to buy warm clothes