Stereotypes in The Way We Live Now

            The action of The Way We Live Now falls in between these two periods. The concept of the literal consumption of blood and lives shifts to the consumption of finances and livelihoods, utilizing the greedy stereotype in conjunction with the idea of ruthlessness and apathy in the financial sphere. These ideas again stem back to medieval times when most Abrahamic faiths, specifically Christianity, forbade charging interest of any kind; Jews were only forbidden from charging interest to other Jews. At the same time the church in England forbade “Jews to own land, to farm, to join crafts and guilds” ostensibly forcing Jews to rely on usury as a means of income (Boroson). This instigated the belief that that Jews were greedy, unscrupulous with finances, and leached their money only from the livelihoods of others, never from their own work while never producing something of value for the society in which they live.