Back in December, my English teacher assigned the class a practice free-response essay. However, it wasn’t a timed-essay and she assigned it to us as a take-home essay for us to work on during the weekends. I remember I was having a hard time trying to understand the passage. Maybe it’s because I was too focused on the terms I didn’t know (i.e., scrivener, liver-complaint, and wiseacres) or too frazzled at the time. Now, I feel pretty stupid because I realized I was reading WAY too into it. After reading it for a few minutes today (and not remembering the definitions of certain terms as listed above), I could extract the main ideas of his essay. It was basically a list of all the things the want of money can do to a person. :P It seemed as though Hazlitt had such a negative view on the want of money due to his word choice, of course. I wanted to post his essay (along with my response essay) because his usage of language to illustrate his points had made quite an impression on me. In this modern-day, it seems as though the ‘flowery’, descriptive language is being downsized, and we’re more concentrated on keeping our writing compositions concise and straight to the point.
Hazlitt’s essay can be found here in this PDF file: http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/ap/students/english/ap06_frq_...
William Hazlitt - "On the Want of Money"
To live is to enjoy the small pleasures of the surrounding world; as people encounter more and more with 'the real world', however, they realize the complications of personal priorities, affecting certain aspects of the holistic health (mentally, emotionally, etc.). In William Hazlitt's essay, "On the Want of Money,” the author instantiates his position on the desires of money and its necessity using rhetorical devices to develop his standpoint, such as the appeals, syntax, and figurative language.
As a foundation to attract attention, Hazlitt incorporates the basic appeals: the logical, the emotional, and the ethical. In terms of logos, he ties in the concerns of money according to situations, comparing the desire and need as "a thrall [slave] to circumstances." Emotionally, Hazlitt scopes the burden of financial deficiency; the scenario to depend on "the good will. . . of others" delivers a relatable situation to readers who've experienced this in some point in their lives. As a glimpse of the author's ethics, the "enthusiasm. . . in youth" and the "disappointment in after-life" conveys money only as a secular necessity and nothing more. Using all three appeals, Hazlitt balances his argument and unifies his points of interest.
Evidently, Hazlitt utilized syntax structures in order to manipulate a unique composition style. Essentially, a lengthy list of enumeratio freely defines the desire of money through various steps in the process of attainment, ranging from the "forgo [of] leisure" to the ridicule in the end. Subsequently, anaphora consistently emphasizes the enumeratio, including the uses of "it is. . . it is" and "to be. . .to be". In many cases, polysyndeton repeats the conjunctions "or" and "and" numerous times to stretch out a euphonious flow for the context being listed. Overall, these syntax structures link together to coherently present a creative prose format in an essay.
Furthermore, language largely accounts for the tone, imagery, and rhythm of a composition. Metaphors in enumeratio (including "to be a seal. . . blind") associate two unlike things to carve an image of an arduous experience into the minds of readers. In addition, Hazlitt sparely employs catachresis to perk up the descriptive language with phrases like "back-biting" and "irksome livelihood.” Aside from these figures of speech, diction predominately sustains negative connotations through expressive words such as "morose,” "chagrin,” and "assailed.”
In conclusion, assessing these devices amplify Hazlitt's message in his essay but also provides more coherence in general. From the excerpt, he speaks out his views on the want and need for money, rather outside from the normal conventions of essay prompts. The genre of his context allows him to implement more figures of speech as effective descriptions of his main ideas.
