Jon-Michael Poff Mrs. Lisa Huff 10 October 2007AP English Language & CompositionHazlitt Passage (2
nd
Draft)Hazlitt’s sarcastic and dismal tones point out the consequences thataccompany a lack of money. Realizing that money is necessary, the authoruses humor to bring to light the problems that a shortage of money canbring. The author’s diction illuminates the hardships brought about by a lackof the almighty dollar. “Laborious employment” only brings about a lifewithout “credit or pleasure,” or “leisure, [or] freedom, [or] ease of mind andbody.” To gain money, people work difficult, strenuous jobs, only to berewarded with discontentment. In their acquisition of money, the poor mustforego those luxuries which they are sure that money will someday bring.Ironically, a life without money is equally as bad as a life spent trying toacquire it. Without money, “envy, back-biting, and falsehood” “[plague]”people’s lives, putting them in “constant distress.” Believing that money willbring a life full of happiness and bliss, people set out on a quest to obtain it. That quest is full of negative consequences, which only intensify as theirsearch deepens. The author’s syntax goes from a single blunt sentence to an endlesssarcastic stream of clauses, and finally to a witty, moderately long sentence.
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