Living Without Money Hazlitt Rhetorical Analysis

Contrary to the common lesson that money can’t buy happiness and one would be happier without the burden of it, those living in reality know that it certainly can. It’s a shallow though phrased in this manner; its more fitting wording to the lesson should be that money can’t buy everything. In William Hazlitt’s passage, he writes about the lifetime of hardship one lives with the lack of money. His sarcastic, convincing, and overemphasized diction and syntax can leave a bitter taste at the end. Hazlitt’s choice of consistent and persistent pessimistic diction is apparent throughout the essay. His proposal is that living without money is the worst circumstance that can befall on anyone. To persuade an array of readers to agree with his outlook, he embodies several abilities in which money would be standing in the way of. Nonetheless, Hazlitt goes even further to adjust the reader into feeling the pain and misfortune by using second person point of view to almost attack the

Throughout the writing, Hazlitt wrote predominantly with diction and with little syntax in sight. Besides the occasionally sarcastic ambience the ending reflects, there is an absence of sentence structure. Yet, this endless essay that is prolonged with no breaks, is able to convey the point of the author, as it can serve as a metaphor. The essay reflects as life tirelessly circling around money, which can leave a restless effect. The denouement impression is rough as Hazlitt’s main idea shifts from it beginning stance. Although the use of the word “want in the title, “on the Want of Money” is meant to be seen as “lack of”, he brings back the original meaning of “Want” later as he subtly transcends into writing about the evils of having money for a short time. This is when his little faith in humanity is presented. Hazlitt’s essay is about how he is subtly, yet wants to make it apparent, is revolted by money and