Power Inequality In Mark Twain's The Gilded Age

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Through our country's history, we have always dealt with power inequality. It has been an issue since as far as we can remember, although specifically the late 19th century was a very climatic era for the United States. It is considered to be the time of the most exceptional growth, prosperity, and innovation. Even so, the country had also been sent into a devastation because of the Civil War. The prime difficulty during this time was not only the constant struggles between the gap of the rich and the poor, but also the extreme fights towards power and wealth. In 1873 Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner wrote a novel which was based on the satirization of the nations political corruption during post-Civil War. Mark and Charles then named the novel “The Gilded Age” Which is now the name of that specific era. Their inspiration for the name “Gilded Age” came from the procedure of applying gold leaf to stone, wood, or any substance that didn't have much value to it in order make it look more deluxe or elegant like. Twain and Warner felt that the name symbolized their idea of the late 19th century to be only golden on the surface, but when one would dig …show more content…

During the times of the Gilded age the labor issues that were occurring were terrible. The amount of labor violence at hand continued to increase, while workers were taken advantage of in numerous ways. They were forced to work for extremely long hours a day with barely any pay, not only were their hours strenuous but work would also take place in very dangerous working conditions. Because of the horrific treatment workers would often organize unions which only made employers even more determined to retaliate. Thus causing workers and industrialists to be at constant conflict, whether it be the fight over control, or just the nonstop strikes and

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