Interspaced In The Big Money

By analyzing the biographies interspaced in the novel, The Big Money, the reader analyzes the main character's personalities, and further notices distinguishable features, whether they are pure or evil. By reading a short biography of one character, interspaced in the reading of a larger story, the reader further understands, by comparing and contrasting the features and ideals of the two individuals, the main characters in John Dos Passos' novel The Big Money. Charley Anderson, a decorated fighter pilot, goes into business designing, inventing, and creating new components for the aviation industry. Anderson excels greatly in this field, and is recruited by rivaling companies. This recruitment drives Charley to believe he is the greatest in designer in the industry, but, instead of continuing to contribute to the aviation industry, he is taken over by the American dream of becoming number one. Charley begins associating with ruthless, greedy people, who care for nothing but money. Anderson is consumed by a materialistic lust for money and power, and a hatred of the labor of production necessary to create his designs. He believes that because he invents the designs, he should not have to labor in any way in manufacturing them. Charley begins the story with no firm
moral basis, without a moral basis to work from; he feels no sympathy for former friends that he has sold out, nor does he feel any shame in being a drunken braggart and a philanderer. Charley Anderson, on his deathbed, realizes he enjoyed inventing and designing more than he enjoyed his attempts to make money and achieve a life of leisure and wealth. Thorstein Veblen's biography depicts a polar opposite attitude than that of Charley Anderson's. Veblen, especially his ancestors and ideal, represents the working class that Anderson despised and judged so much, he did not work in a factory, even worse; his family consisted of free holding farmers. Veblen and Anderson both strove to break their boundaries and become something different than their social positions appointed them to be, the difference between the two men's ambition to break the norm was the reasoning behind their desire to evolve. Anderson desired a life of money and luxury, while Veblen desired to educate and learn. Both men were inventors, and they both understood how the stock market worked, however, Charley cared nothing for the workingman, he only concerned himself with the men who profited from their efforts, while Thorstein felt pity and understood the pain and sufferings of the working class people, but cared nothing for the men who were the main profiteers. Margo Dowling, a poor girl with a history of sexual abuse, learns that she can control men through her sexuality.
She makes her way into economic security by sleeping with men who, she feels, can help her gain a certain amount of wealth. She finds herself with Charles Anderson, just in time for her to obtain control of a small stock portfolio and a portion of his inheritance, which she uses to travel west, to the land of moving pictures. Once there she continues to use her sexuality to climb her way to the top of a ladder that she believes will bring her happiness, but near the end of the novel the films are beginning to incorporate sound, which will ruin her stardom due to her harsh
voice. The Wright brother's biography relates to Margo's on an almost parallel base. The same way that Margo uses her sexual talents to pull her closer to the top, the Wright brothers use their skills as inventors to gain entrance into the spotlight. Margo uses the same technique she taught herself to climb up the ladder, possibly she improved on her techniques, but she still used the same mechanism, sex, to stimulate each person she decided to ‘impress,' in the same manner, the Wright brothers used the airplane, on many different occasions, to impress their different audiences. Both Anderson's and Margo's stories relate to the biographies of Veblen and the Wright brothers in their own unique fashions, whether one considers the difference between Anderson and Veblen, or the Similarities of Margo and the Wright Brothers. By reading a short biography of one character, interspaced in the reading of a larger story, the reader further understands, by comparing and contrasting the features and ideals of the two individuals, the main characters in John Dos Passos' novel The Big Money.