Gilded Age Analysis

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In Twain’s “Gilded Age”, several aspects can be found to have been influenced the author in preparing and eventually publishing (in a narrative mode) his criticisms against the prosperity which myriads of Americans enjoyed in the post- Civil War era in an unequal manner. In this work of Mark Twain one is sure to find that the Gilded Age embodies an age of unequal distribution of wealth and unequal distribution of prosperity. Twain and Warner considered this Gilded Age as an age in which the United States experienced rapid economic growth that generated enormous wealth and economic prosperity and the new products and technologies contributed to the improvement in the quality of life for the middle-class, but this was not the truth for the labor …show more content…
Like Massachusetts Puritans who hoped to build a “city upon a hill,” courageous pioneers believed that America had a divine obligation to stretch the boundaries of their noble republic to the Pacific Ocean” (“Manifest Destiny”, n.d.). This ideology was what came to be known as Manifest Destiny – the westward expansion which, though improved the lives of many Americans and provided the nation with a new geopolitical shape, brought about agonies for millions including the Native Americans and the working class whose conditions were yet to improve. The story of woes and agonies which have been depicted and integrated within Twain’s “Gilded Age” might be considered as the story of innumerable Native Americans who were considered unduly as heathens by the so called Christians of the civilized world. The Christian missionaries took the advantage of the westward expansion and applied their superiority over the Native Americans eventually ruining their way of life, their belief systems, and their culture. It is noteworthy in this regard that, “At the heart of manifest destiny was the pervasive belief in American cultural and racial superiority. Native Americans had long been perceived inferior, and efforts to “civilize” them had been widespread since the days of John Smith and Miles Standish” (“Manifest Destiny”,
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