William Hazlitt's On The Want Of Money

It is often stated that money cannot buy happiness and that life can be fulfilling without it. However, William Hazlitt argues this within the passage “On the Want of Money” for those who lack money are doomed to live a life of demise. Hazlitt sincerely believes a life lived without the protection and comfort of money is one that shall be full of struggle. Using dreary diction, syntax, and a something tone Hazlitt portrays his obvious view that although money doesn’t actually grant someone life, it does decide how an individual is going to live.
Through the use of diction that can best be described as dreary and harsh Hazlitt is able to depict the sorrows of living the life of the poor. Hazlitt reflects on how individuals with little to no …show more content…
He dominantly utilizes a syntax structure comprised of paragraphs with no breaks or periods in order to achieve a stream-of-consciousness sort of feeling that, in retrospect, acts as a metaphor of the tirelessness of a life revolving around money and it makes the reader feel that relentless burden. His seemingly never-ending usage of commas make it so that the period that he finally uses has so much more authority and declaration. The commas represent a continuation of life, and the periods finally end that long, endless essay; the long grueling life which money creates. The whole process leaves the reader feeling “suffocated” and “drowned.” The use of polysyndeton adds to the feeling of hopelessness that seems to be a constant theme for the great use of the conjunction “or” allows for Hazlitt to create a very dragged out list of all the reasons that being poor is completely against your best interests, which gives off the impression of a rant. It makes the reader feel as though once you reach the boundaries of poverty, there is nothing in life left to look forward to. Hazlitt uses metaphors to provide strokes of detail that eventually add up to a bigger picture—the principles of money within society. He believes that “to be in want of [money], is to pass through life with little credit or pleasure; it is to live out of the world, or to be despised if you come into it.” From

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