Wealth In the Gilded Age Told Through Twain

            The Gilded Age was a time period of industry growth and immigration.  After the Civil War, development started to boom in different industries such as the railroad, steel and oil industries, and this produced a lot of wealth.  Author Mark Twain wrote many works during the Gilded Age, and some of his stories strongly reflect this.

            One of the popular themes and symbols in some of Twain’s stories is wealth and money.  The Gilded Age was named so for the many great fortunes created during its period.  Mark Twain takes a stab at the rapid growth of wealth in stories that involve get rich quick schemes, different associations with money.  Our class will come across this when we read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, when Huck and Jim meet the Duke and the King and involuntarily become part of their schemes.   In The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calveras Country, Twain writes about a character who is obsessed with betting, another way to earn wealth fast and quick.  Gambling, too, is popular amongst his stories in Science vs. Luck as well.  People are trying to make money anyway they can and through his exaggeration he makes the point that society can become obsessed with it.  In the case of the character, Jim Smiley, in the Notorious Jumping Frog of Calveras County, Twain exaggerates his obsession with gambling by the lengths the character is willing to go to win a bet.  Twain writes, “He ketched a frog one day, and took him home, and said he cal’lated to educate him; and so he never done nothing for three months but set in his back yard and learn that frog to jump.” (Twain 4).  The idea of training a frog for three months to win a bet is absurd, but he gets his point across about society’s obsession with gambling and money.

            In the story, The £1,000,000 Bank-Note, Twain transitions slightly from society’s obsession with wealth to the image and symbol it has.  A man with no money, becomes part of a bet (again gambling is brought up), and is given a million pounds for a month.  We discussed in class how because the man was given the note and did not earn, he did not associate the wealth with himself.  Even when he had the million pounds, all he could think about was a future salary where he earned money and could then associate with a higher class.  This story reflects how money is a symbol of someone’s class and self-worth rather than just a nominal sum.  Over the course of the month, the man’s self worth begins to grow as others associate him as the “vest-pocket million-pounder” and the money makes him a celebrity. 

            There are many powers behind money itself, like fame, wealth, fortune, arrogance, that Twain plays on in his stories.  The Gilded Age faced robber barons like John D. Rockefeller who tried to control the entire Oil Industry for power and money.  Living in an era like the Gilded Age thus sprouted opportunity for Twain to ridicule wealth in American society.

Works Cited

Twain, Mark.  The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain.  New York: Bantam Books, 1957.  Print.