I know we're talking 1950s money, but, still, was $700 such a sum to get worked up over, even if it's all he had? Was the amount not important, but just that it was the tail-end of a life of poor money management? What'll he do for money now? (were you disappointed to be left hanging?)
I found a Web site with some fun inflation figures, such as:
In 1950 the average cost of a new car was $1,510.00.
In 1950 a new house cost $8,450.00 and by 1959 was $12,400.
In 1950 the average income per year was $3,210.00 and by 1959 was $5,010.00
In 1950 a gallon of gas was 18 cents and by 1959 was 25 cents.
A Chevrolet Corvette cost $3631 in 1958.
A men's all wool suit cost $28.90.
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Is it a lot of money? It may depend on one's job prospects -- he clearly didn't have one.
ReplyDeleteI could relate to the mental gymnastics Wilhelm indulged in to join the market: It was his last $700, and it would run out sooner or later, so might as well make it sooner for the chance at big money. This must be how gamblers think.
Then there's the value of $700 when it is, as Wilhelm mistakenly thinks, on Tamkin's back, rather than his own. Or when there's a father to bail him out, as he also mistakenly thinks ... and when there isn't.
Funny how it's not just the sum of the money but what you think it's doing for you or who puts up the risk that makes $700 a roll of the dice or your life savings. When is $700 not only $700? When you're really bad with finances, like Wilhelm!
Yeah, excellent points. Maybe in some way he just wanted to hasten his future — good or bad — instead of prolonging the present misery. He seemed so passive. Maybe the only way he could function was to be forced into action by circumstances.
ReplyDeleteThe psychology of money is very strange, as you note, because even if an amount is not absolutely much money we can be almost pathological about not parting with it, and in a slightly different circumstance we might just as easily spend it without a second thought.
I think that money was very much tied up in Wilhelm's masculinity as well. Putting it for risk was like an assertion of manhood that he realized he couldn't sustain. Nor would there be forgiveness or a bailout from the leading male figure in his life.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's a good point about masculinity.
ReplyDeleteWilhelm is ill-suited to the obligations of 1950s manhood. He really can't function in that environment, and yet he doesn't haven't the strength or courage to renounce it and live another kind of life with a new set of values.
One of the most intriguing things about "Revolutionary Road," which I mentioned in an earlier post, is that we have a housewife who's begging her husband to be a new kind of man, to renounce his unsatisfying career of office machine sales. Her plan is for them to move to Paris, for her to support them while he "finds" himself. It's an achievable plan, too, but his ego is so tied up in his masculinity, in his ability to earn money and please his male superiors that he dismisses his wife's bold plan as an immature pipe dream and lets slide the opportunity of a lifetime. He becomes committed to a life in suburbia raising kids he doesn't even plan for or really want and spending the weekends doing manly yardwork. It's not the life he set out to live, but his vanity keeps him from walking away from it because it's the "model of success" that is most deeply ingrained in him.
Wilhelm tries to break free from a stultifying existence with a quest for movie stardom and get-rich-quick schemes, but that old masculine model of success still has a grip on his soul.
That sounds like a great read.
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