The direct aspects of poverty would be those that are immediate. For example, if you are poor, you don't have money. Often this means you must work harder, at less attractive work, and that you can't afford to take part in the same entertainments that others with more money could…or even the same necessities, as the poor have to skip medical treatments, live in cheaper houses, etc.

The indirect aspects are those that come as corollaries or side effects of these immediate aspects. For example, the wife in the story becomes less physically attractive as a result of the hard physical labor she has to perform. Because they are spending so much time working—and because they simply don't have the money for the appropriate clothing—the couple fall out of the same social circles. Technically, they wouldn't have to do so. A friend could still be a friend, but the couple becomes ashamed of what they've done, and of what they lack, and don't even try to spend time with their former friends.

As far as not using "I," that's pretty easy. Talk about what happens in the story directly, and cut your opinion out of it. Write, for example, "The wife wants to do…" not "I think the wife wants to do…"