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

Hidden Fraud in Trollopes The Way We Live in a flashHamilton K. Fisker supplies the impetus for rolling Augustus Melmotte onwards into almost unprecedented commercial splendor (Trollope 1.324). While his character occupies very little record space, Fisker functions as the particle accelerator which sets the novels financial ventures in motion Melmotte rolls because Fisker has pushed. Not only(prenominal) does Fisker bring the Great S revealh Central Pacific and Mexican railroad line (or at least the prospectus) to England, that he also delimits the board members single-valued function in the venture. He places Melmotte, the novels great financier, in intrust and repels capital of Minnesota Montagues desire to involve himself as an active manager in the railroads daily operations (1.217). Fisker rejects capital of Minnesotas attempt to oversee the Mexican Railroads actualization by arguing that building railway lines does not concern an investor such as Paul But Fiske r got the smash of him and put him down. Fortune what fortune had either of us? A few beggarly thousands of dollars not worth lecture of, and b arely 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 work 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 apart 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 economical principles. He does not want Paul to enforce honest practices in the railroads financial transactions. Fiskers first commercial d octrine, then, declares that we should plow small investors not worth talking of. Since small, individual investments financed the majority of side railway ventures in Victorian 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 respect him personally, Fiskers dominant narrative carries him away. Similarly, even though The Way We Live Now cynically satirizes deceitful business practices, Trollope takes Fiskers declaration that a few thousand dollars are not worth talking of to heart.