Hidden Fraud in Trollope’s The Way We Live Now :: Literature Fortune Papers

Hidden Fraud in Trollopes The Way We Live NowHamilton K. Fisker supplies the impetus for rolling Augustus Melmotte onwards into almost unprecedented commercial-grade greatness (Trollope 1.324). While his character occupies very little narrative space, Fisker functions as the catalyst which sets the novels financial ventures in motion Melmotte rolls because Fisker has pushed. Not barely does Fisker bring the Great South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway (or at least the prospectus) to England, alone he also delimits the board members role in the venture. He places Melmotte, the novels great financier, in charge and repels capital of Minnesota Montagues desire to involve himself as an active director in the lines daily operations (1.217). Fisker rejects Pauls attempt to oversee the Mexican Railroads actualization by arguing that building railway lines does not concern an investor such as Paul But Fisker got the better of him and put him down. Fortune what fortune had eith er of us? A hardly a(prenominal) poor thousands of dollars not worth talking of, and barely sufficient to enable a man to look at an enterprise. And now where are you? look here, sir theres more to be got out of the smashing up of such an affair as this, if it should smash up, than could be made by years of hard fiddle out of such fortunes as yours and mine in the regular way of trade. Paul Montague certainly did not love Mr Fisker personally, nor did he relish his commercial doctrines but he allowed himself to be carried away by them. (1.85) If Fiskers momentum rolls Melmotte, it carries away Paul, and the force of Fiskers rhetoric subjugates Paul to his commercial doctrines Fisker put him down. Fisker gets the better of Paul by making speech subservient to lucrative economic principles. He does not want Paul to enforce honest practices in the railroads financial transactions. Fiskers first commercial doctrine, then, declares that we should consider small investor s not worth talking of. Since small, individual investments financed the majority of English railway ventures in squared-toe England (Robb 36), Fisker essentially declares that the Mexican Railways investors should not receive any narrative attention. Even though Paul does not love Fisker or revere him personally, Fiskers dominant narrative carries him away. Similarly, even though The Way We Live Now cynically satirizes fraudulent business practices, Trollope takes Fiskers declaration that a few thousand dollars are not worth talking of to heart.