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Rhetorical Analysis Of Money By William Hazlitt

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William Hazlitt, in his essay about money, expresses his ideas about wealth while utilizing parallel structure and polysyndetons to demonstrate how striving for wealth contributes to a lower quality of life and afterlife. Hazlitt uses parallel structure multiple times in his essay. At the beginning of his speech, Hazlitt utilizes parallelism to describe how striving for money lowers quality of life by destroying interpersonal relationships: “It is to be scrutinized by strangers, and neglected by friends.” Hazlitt implies that striving for wealth results in harsh judgement from others and loss of friendships. An additional example of parallelism – “to be full of enthusiasm and extravagance in youth, of chagrin and disappointment in afterlife – “ contrasts the joy found after working many years to earn money with the dissatisfaction and emptiness found in the afterlife; Hazlitt’s parallelism displays the ironic nature between a feeling of …show more content…

Hazlitt’s polysyndeton – “It is to be compelled to stand behind a counter, or to sit at a desk in some public office, or to marry your landlady, or not the person you would wish – “ emphasizes the ridiculous things one would do to gain wealth. Furthermore, Hazlitt utilizes a polysyndeton to display the measures people take to gain wealth despite unhappiness; he implies that one would rather commit to an unhappy marriage than have less wealth. Hazlitt uses an additional polysyndeton – “or to be deprived of the use of your fingers by transcribing Greek manuscripts, or to be a seal-engraver and pore yourself blind, or to go upon the stage, or try some of the Fine Arts – “ in order to emphasize the number of meaningless, unfulfilling jobs people choose in order to solely gain money. The monotonous tone of polysyndetons helps Hazlitt convey how far people go, as far as risking their own happiness, to gain and accumulate

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