Liar's Poker: A Narrative Analysis

1. This analogy compares Wall Street to a war zone. While the game “Liar’s Poker” gives a person the feel of trading so does jousting give someone the feel for war. Although a game and jousting aren’t as extreme as the reality of trading and war it still helps to mirror the idea of each. The prevailing point of Lewis’s story 2. Since most people are familiar with the environment of the work place Lewis is describing the imagery and description he uses is key. He uses a piece of very vivid imagery when explaining the intense encounters with Gutfreund, “You felt a chill in your bones that I imagine belongs to the same class of intelligence as the nervous twitch of a small furry animal at the silent approach of a grizzly bear.” The author uses the beginning of the story making Gutfreund out to be a powerful guy, which he is. However, Meriwether is the risk taker. When Gutfreund offers to play Meriwether at the hand of 1 million dollars he is turned down by the king of the game. “Ten million dollars. It was moment for all players to savor. Meriwether was playing Liar’s Poker before the game even started.” 3. Instead of making it a simple, point blank conversation the author decides to give us some background of the situation and rules of the game so the reader better understands the events as they …show more content…
Lewis’s tone is tense and powerful. His story depicts some of the richest men in Wall Street. Gutfreund manages the firm dubbing him the King of Wall Street, but Meriwether is the best and most risky trader on Salomon making him the King of the Game. Gutfeund is admired as almost God-like, “others who couldn’t imagine John Gutfreund as anything but omnipotent.” And Meriwether is admired by all “once they got onto Meriwether’s trading desk, however, they forgot they were supposed to be detached intellectuals.” The Salomon trading floor is an intense environment all around, “at any moment on the trading floor billions of dollars were being risked by bond