The Gospel Of Wealth

Carnegie employs several different kinds of allusions in his article to enhance his arguments and explanations. Various Biblical allusions elevate his ideas to the level of religious, and specifically, Christian, discourse. When he suggests that a man who dies rich also dies disgraced, he may be using the religious meaning of the word “grace,” which is a state of being close to God—that is, by dying rich, a man is entering the afterlife far from God, which is a risky proposition for Christians. As well, Carnegie uses allusions to allude to the “incompetent and lazy fellow” (7), such as this allusion from the Book of Micah: “‘If thou dost not sow, thou shalt not reap” (7).He also compares the rare productive sons who inherit masses of wealth to “the salt of the earth” (10), an allusion to the Gospel of Matthew. 

Another important allusion takes the form of Carnegie’s reference to Shakespeare’s tragedy The Merchant of Venice, comparing the “millionaire’s hoard” (13) to that of Shylock’s wealth. Shylock, one of Shakespeare’s best-known villains, is a Venetian moneylender who places cruel and immoral conditions around his loans and takes advantage of people who need his services.