The 1,000,000 Bank Note

1
The 1,000,000 Bank Note

• Money
• and Social Climbing

2
Outline

• Starting Questions
• Henrys Personalities 1, 2
• The environment as his support
• Humor
• Conclusion Money and Class in a capitalist
  society

3
Starting Questions

• Is the story interesting or convincing to you? 
• Why does it happen to this young man, who is
  later called Henry?  
• What qualifies him to take this bank-note of such
  a huge amount?  What is his task?  What makes him
  fulfill his task?  Would you be able to be as
  successful as he is?

4
Henrys Personalities

• One who tries to adjust to changes without
  losing his face.
• Knows the value of money in society well enough
  the play the role of a millionaire. (e.g. at the
  eating house and the tailors shop)
• Responses
• get proper dressing and house
• Pay visits to VIPs

5
Moneys Social Impact

• effects free meals, free clothes, fame for
  Harris
• ? loan from Harris
• ? social gossip called vest-pocket monster,
• ? medias attention newspaper (p. 7)
• Besides being funny, what does this rise to
  fortune imply?

6
Henrys Personalities (2)

• His responses to to this radical change of his
  fortune and social position? 
• Why does he choose to be honest to Portia Langham
  about his having no money, but not to Lloyd
  Hastings? 
• Do you think him arrogant in letting Lloyd use
  his name and his name only for a fortnight? 
• --  What makes him fall for Portia?
• Is his raising the salary he expects to get from
  the gentleman from 600 to 1000 pounds a year to
  1200 a year, and then to 3000, unrealistic? 

7
Humor

• The targets of humor
• the protagonist when he is poor  
• The minor characters and the Londonersin their
  admiration of wealth
• The English their way to end a debate their
  views of game. (Which reveals his American
  perspective.)
• humor -- achieved through description,
  exaggeration, caricature (shop clerk), or
  skillful use of syntax and rhetoric (e.g. Henry
  and Portia)

8
For your reference Twain on Humor

• Humor is the great thing, the saving thing. The
  minute it crops up, all our irritations and
  resentments slip away and a sunny spirit takes
  their place.
• Against the assault of laughter, nothing can
  stand.
• The secret source of Humor itself is not joy but
  sorrow. There is no laughter in heaven. (sources
  1, 2, 3)

9
Money and Class

• Henry from a made man to a self-made man
  capable of using a sign of social status to win
  him a real status.
• Love for him is more valuable than the bank note,
  but it is still measured in money terms.
• If this bank-note is an abstract form of money,
  then what it signifies social status and
  loveis also relative and empty of substance.