The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today

The Gilded Age employs a linear narrative, using backstory and characters’ thoughts to reveal their histories. The inciting incident occurs when Silas reveals his expectation that the Tennessee land he has purchased will result in immense riches for the family and announces their move to Missouri to invest in Beriah’s latest get-rich-quick scheme. External conflicts between the individual and society are most prominent in these chapters, manifested in the institution of slavery, sexism, and social values that prioritize wealth at any cost.

Several chapters open with epigraphs, shaping the novel’s structure and developing thematic concepts. Epigraphs in Chapters 1-11 are taken from works by Martin Zeiler, a German author in the 17th century, and Ben Jonson, an English playwright and contemporary of William Shakespeare.

No single protagonist exists in this ensemble story, but as the family patriarch and the first character introduced, Silas comes closest to a protagonist in these early chapters. He’s portrayed as a kind man whose somewhat naive quests for wealth are motivated by love for his family and a desire to provide for his children. His adoption of orphans Clay and Laura demonstrates his generous nature. Recognizing his good intentions, his family loves and honors him even when his foolish decisions have left them destitute. Silas’s brief character arc testifies to the effects of chasing riches through schemes and speculations: “years of fluctuating fortune had done their work; […] his last misfortune seemed to have left hope and ambition dead within him” (34). Silas’s downfall develops the theme of Greed and the Metaphor of the Gilded Age: Silas chases the promise of easy riches all his life, only to find that promise as illusory as a gilt surface.

Beriah’s character humorously epitomizes the era of get-rich-quick schemes that later came to be known—after this book’s title—as the Gilded Age. His hyperbolic and manipulative speech is his most prominent trait, and he uses this skill to lure other characters into disastrous financial decisions.

Nancy Hawkins supports her husband’s every decision, though they cause her a great deal of anxiety. She has insight into Beriah’s manipulative influence but doesn’t express it. The book skewers the prevailing sexist attitudes of the era, including the belief that women don’t understand finances, by showing that Nancy understands her husband’s financial decisions far better than he does, though she is not given the authority to act on her understanding. Women’s lack of voice in such matters, combined with their legal and social dependence on men, often results in women being forced into poverty by their husbands’ decisions. From her early support of Silas, Nancy’s character undergoes a significant transformation. When Silas refuses an offer on the Tennessee land, demanding more money, Nancy says, “Never, never, never. He never will come back. I don’t know what is to become of us. I don’t know what in the world is to become of us” (29). Her outlook has turned to one of despair after seeing her husband squander their money over and over.

While Laura’s character becomes more central in later chapters, the seeds are sown in the first few chapters. At the age of 12, the narrators describe her as “Willful, generous, forgiving, imperious, affectionate, improvident, bewitching” (27). These traits of character are complemented by her budding beauty, which is highlighted to foreshadow its later influence.

Washington is characterized as a dreamer. His father’s faith in the future value of the Tennessee land sets Washington up for failure. As a boy, he is taken in by Beriah’s get-rich-quick schemes, and as a result he develops a lifelong inability to commit to honest work. His desire for wealth is not motivated by pure greed, however, but instead by his love for Louise.

Setting plays a crucial role in developing the story’s themes. The narrators don’t explicitly indicate when it takes place, but events in the text suggest the scenes in these chapters are set in the 1840s or 1850s, before the Civil War and abolition of slavery. The Hawkins family lives in the South—in Tennessee and Missouri—and, despite their poverty, they have an enslaved couple, Uncle Dan’l and Aunt Jinny, traveling with them. Technological advances of the era, including expanded use of steamboats and railroads, play an important role in the story, inspiring dreams of immense wealth and fueling violence and displacement against Indigenous peoples.

The story is narrated in third-person omniscient point of view. Like many authors of the Realism movement, Twain and Warner employ journalistic techniques in some aspects of their writing. For example, their use of a plural narrative voice acknowledges the two authors as the story’s narrators. These techniques are also demonstrated in narrative observations and asides, such as a comment noting, “**[The incidents of the explosion are not invented. They happened just as they are told.—The Authors.]” (20). This footnote refers to the explosion of the Amaranth and perhaps alludes to the steamboat explosion that killed Twain’s brother.

Chapters 1-11 establish a writing style distinguished by a humorous tone and frequent use of dialect. The humor is often satirical. Laura says of an admirer, “He is prosperous, too, I hear; has been a doctor a year, now, and has had two patients—no, three, I think; yes, it was three. I attended their funerals” (54). This ironic statement mocks society’s value system, which esteems amiability and pedigree over competence and accountability. Dialect is a noted feature of Twain’s style throughout his oeuvre. It entertains as well as lending authenticity, as in this example from the opening scene: “Tha hain’t no news ’bout the jedge, hit ain’t likely?” (1). This line represents the dialect of rural Obedstown, Tennessee, and brings the setting to life for the reader.

Washington’s naive trust in Beriah’s schemes, like his eye-water remedy, are described with a mocking tone that treats people like Washington as unfathomably stupid. Beriah’s dishonesty is made so apparent to the reader that Washington’s failure to recognize it makes him a symbol of the American gullibility the authors deride. Several of Beriah’s schemes capitalize on the industry of slavery, contributing to a tone of criticism toward the South.

Dishonesty is central to the theme of Greed and the Metaphor of the Gilded Age. To gild something is to coat it in a thin veneer of gold in order to make it appear more precious than it is—an implicitly dishonest practice. For everyone who naively believes in the promise of a gilt surface—Silas and his son Washington, for example—there is someone who has consciously gilded that surface as a lure for the gullible. In these chapters, that character is Beriah, a man who eschews honesty because he sees it as limiting the amount of money he can make. In The Gilded Age, greed is manifested in the desire for wealth beyond what one needs to live comfortably. Beriah exemplifies this greed. Silas and Washington’s greed is a product of their love for others in a society that expects them to be providers. Nevertheless, they aren’t spared its destructive influence.

Another thematic concept revolves around the lifelong effects of expecting immense wealth without working to build it. Later, this mental habit is referred to as Building Castles in the Sky—trusting in an impossibly perfect future rather than working in the present to improve one’s life. Such expectations are instilled in Washington’s mind from childhood, like when Silas asks, “Washington, my boy, what will you do when you get to be one of the richest men in the world?” (21). Thinking his future wealth is a foregone conclusion, Washington never learns a trade or dedicates himself to hard work. Nancy Hawkins’s fears foreshadow the outcome of these expectations. She thinks it unwise to put all their hopes in the Tennessee land and never think of working. Unfortunately, Washington doesn’t share her cautious views.

A critique of racism and the institution of slavery is also established in these chapters, most notably through the characters of Dan’l and Jinny, whose enslavement is another instance of Greed and the Metaphor of the Gilded Age. The wealth of the South is illusory, having been built through the unsustainable and morally reprehensible practice of slavery. When the Civil War comes later in the book, it fits into the wider thematic pattern: another false promise coming to ruin.