Jonathan Wild
The career of the thief-taker who ran London's trade in stolen goods and hanged his own men for the reward money, narrated throughout as though ruthlessness were the only definition of greatness any nation has ever used. A mild tradesman named Heartfree is in the book chiefly to be ruined by him and to demonstrate that goodness is a separate quality with no prospects whatever. Walpole was the target every reader recognised in 1743, fifteen years after Gay had put Wild on the stage as Peachum in The Beggar's Opera.
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Lineage
- shares sources with ↑ The Beggar's Opera
Attributes
Genre
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
Plot structure
Emotional arc (story shape)
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Culture / tradition
Closest analogues
- 59% · 15 shared
- 59% · 15 shared
- 59% · 15 shared
- 59% · 14 shared
- 57% · 15 shared
- 57% · 14 shared