Hazlitt's On The Want Of Money

Throughout the nineteenth-century, an increase in the desire for wealth can be seen. Men like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, extremely rich businessmen, become the most powerful men in America due to their influential wealth, forging the saying; “money is power.” Also at this time, people call for silver backed dollars in order to have an increase in money circulation and therefore, more cash in their pocket in the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890 contributing to the Panic of 1893 in which one man, J.P. Morgan, donated enough money to the U.S. Government stabilizing economy and he will do the same in 1907. Americans saw these people and had to desire to be like them, they had the desire for money. Although money allows one
Terms with a negative context such as, “scrutinized,” “deprived,” and “disappointment” are found within the essay in order to attach a negative feeling towards money. In addition, Hazlitt, using parallelism, repeats the word “or” many times throughout his essay to emphasize the many undesirable outcomes that could occur due to the want of money. Also while using parallelism, Hazlitt includes the word “you” to make his essay seem more personable to the readers. This is important because if one reads this essay they may say, “Oh, this won’t happen to me,” but by commonly using “you,” the writer forces the thought in mind that this could happen if the want for money gets fierce. Based on Hazlitt’s diction, his intended audience are those who have a great desire for money and “On the Want of Money” is written as a type of warning to those individuals. These strategies of diction are used to make the many horrific occurrences more personable to the
By using multiple hypotheticals such as, “To be in want of [money]... is to go out to the East or West Indies… and return home with a liver-complaint” or “To be in want of [money]... is to marry your landlady, or not the person you would wish,” Hazlitt clarifying that it would not be the person whom it would be prefered to marry, in case there were an individual in this hypothetical scenario who would indeed want to marry their landlady. These hypotheticals speak to the reader saying that there are many different scenarios that could occur from the want of money and none of them are positive. In concluding these horrific scenarios, Hazlitt defines the death of the desirer as pitiful and sorrowful by saying that the attendants would “commemorate your genius and your misfortunes!” When one envisions their funeral, they don’t think of people celebrating the misfortunes that they had gone through, rather, they envision the attendees glistening with tears of sadness toward them. This imagery would strike the reader in concluding that having a want for money does not sit well with a pleasurable