It's All In the Money--Characters and Currency Quiz

Answer: Wilkins Micawber

The epigraph on Charles Dickens' tombstone reads, "He was a sympathiser to the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and by his death, one of England's greatest writers is lost to the world." Some say that McCawber is based somewhat on Dickens' father. Mr. McCawber over and over repeats plaintively, "Something will turn up."

Answer: Simon Rosedale

"The House of Mirth" is Edith Wharton's second published novel. Simon Rosedale is rather explicitly presented as a Jewish man dedicated to the pursuit of rank and money. He is, importantly, the only person who offers to help Lily Bart when she begins her downward spiral.

Answer: Emma Bovary

Gustave Flaubert, the author, is famous for saying "Madame Bovary, c'est moi."

Emma Bovary had incurred amazing debt in her desire to be free of a humdrum marriage and to try to live a more romantically satisfying life. All this debt led to "official notices, judgments, bankruptcy, seizure, and finally notice of sale of the furniture belonging to Monsieur Bovary, who was unaware of all of it." Caught in her lies and her debt, Emma Bovary chose to get out--to take arsenic.

Answer: Becky Sharp

Becky Sharp is the heroine of "Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero," a novel by William Makepeace Thackeray which was first published in 1847-48, in the heyday of realist fiction. In the first installment, Thackeray said, "Vanity Fair is a very vain, wicked, foolish place, full of all sorts of humbugs and falseness and pretentions." http://www.enotes.com/vanity-fair/

Answer: Silas Marner

"Silas Marner" is a novel which lends itself to much facile symbolic interpretation. Dunstan, who steals the gold that Silas had earned, falls into a literal pit in the process. Eppie, the golden haired girl, magically comes into Silas Marner's life as a figurative replacement for the stolen gold.

Answer: Shylock

Money lending was one of the jobs open to Jews in Shakespeare's time. Shylock's character and the play's conclusion have been the subject of substantial debate as to its anti-Semitism and/or stereotypical approach. Today, many readers find that Shylock is presented in a remarkably three dimensional sense, especially given the overt anti-Semitic practices which often remained unchallenged in Shakepeare's time.

Answer: Clyde Griffins

Theodore Dreiser wrote "An American Tragedy" in 1925. Dreiser began this novel with a similar historical event in mind. In 1906 people found an overturned boat, and the body of Grace Brown at a summer resort in New York.

Answer: Timon of Athens

After Timon finds the gold, he refers to it as "this yellow slave." "Timon of Athens" is a play which was not produced. Some Shakespearean scholars argue still that it was not finished. The entire play, written probably between 1605 and 1608 takes on the role of money in James I's England.

Answer: Leónce Pontellier

Leonce's goals are financial and superficial; he wants to stay in touch with what he calls "the procession" which is the superficial, materialist upper-class life. Chopin's novel dramatises what can happen when a woman does not marry for love.

Answer: Jay Gatsby

Fitzgerald spent his life trying to be a financial success and thereby win the love and respect of others. At the time of his death of a heart attack in 1940, he was working on a manuscript called "The Love of the Last Tycoon."
"The Great Gatbsy" is particularly important for its recognition that the American Dream somehow had been transformed from individualist improvement to a raw craving for monetary success. Many images support this awareness, including The Valley of Ashes in the novel which depicts industrial waste as just that--ashes.