Summary Of Guys Like That By Dana Gioia

Although Money by Dana Gioia and Guys Like That by Joyce Sutphen were written in a relatively short time period, within 20 years, and are both about money, they have several important dissimilarities. Language, characterization, and point of view are the most striking of these. However, there are at least as many similarities, with theme being arguably the most important of these. Both are poems with materialism at their core, and a, if not outright dislike of wealth, a certain bitterness towards it, and both address the fact that money can become a dangerous obsession.
Although pronouns are not used to show who is speaking, Money appears to be written from a first person point of view. Guys Like That is told in the rarely used second person form. The use of “you” to insert the reader into the situation

Language is where the two poems begin to be revealed as such different pieces. Money is written in a casual tone. Much of the poem is different terms for money. The rest of the poem is slang terms and common phrases for what money might do or what one might do with money such as “it greases the palm” or
“chock it up, fork it over, shell it out”
The repetitive use of names for money contributes to its showing the obsessive power money can have over us. Guys Like That, in contrast, is written in a more formal tone. Slang terms are not used, and the poem uses more formal, although still casual, diction.
The speaker’s bitterness towards money in the poem “Money” is not revealed until the final lines. The majority of the poem expresses a deep longing for money, the desire to possess more of it for all the things that might be done with it. Money can allow for many things, some of them good, as in holding heads above water. It is not until the final lines that a bitterness begins to be revealed.
“Money. You don’t know where it’s been, but you put it where your mouth is.
And it