“The Richer, The Poorer” chronicles the lives of two very different sisters: Lottie, who works and saves, and Bess, who enjoys life despite poverty. Although they grow up in the same poor home, their attitudes as well as life choices and trajectories differ greatly. Author Dorothy West uses various symbols to contrast the sisters.

Money represents materialism and security. The sisters’ divergent relationships to money are summed up well in this description:

Lottie had a bank account that had never grown lean. Bess had the clothes on her back, and the rest of her worldly possessions in a battered suitcase.

Throughout her life, Lottie focuses only on earning more and more money, to the detriment of any relationships or inner life. In contrast, Bess prioritizes experiences and travel over money and material objects. As a young girl, Bessie does not care about new toys (e.g., roller skates, bicycles); she is happy to borrow them in order to have the chance to play. Lottie, on the other hand, eschews borrowed objects and thus deprives herself of joy. Unlike Bess,

Lottie couldn’t wait to grow up and buy herself the best of everything.

Money is a source of security for Lottie. She chooses working over school (“A job in hand was worth two in the future”) and pursuing a career over marriage:

Two or three times she was halfway persuaded, but to give up a job that paid well for a homemaking job that paid nothing was a risk she was incapable of taking.

A second symbol is the house. To Lottie, a house represents more security and, most importantly, ownership. She purchases it from her boss, who

offered Lottie his first house at a price so low and terms so reasonable that it would have been like losing money to refuse.

Yet the house is just another material possession and represents to Lottie money saved. She keeps this property empty and devoid of feeling and humanity:

She shut off the rooms she didn’t use, letting them go to rack and ruin. Since she ate her meals out, she had no food at home, and did not encourage callers, who always expected a cup of tea.

Lottie has no appreciation for the house itself, does not try to make it a home, and forges no connections with others. Only when she fixes up the house to her liking in preparation for Bess does she come alive and actually feel satisfied. Her satisfaction, nonetheless, derives from the fact that her renovations are superficial adornments:

There was everything to do, everything to replace or paint. When she was through the room looked so fresh and new.

Money also buys Lottie a new appearance, as she fixes herself up when she realizes what she looks like to others:

She went on a spending spree from specialty shops to beauty salon, emerging transformed into a woman who believed in miracles.

Nonetheless, the renovations on her house ultimately give her a purpose (besides earning money) and allow her imbue it with her own spirit:

At night she slept like a child after a long and happy day of playing house. She was having more fun than she had ever had in her life. She was living each hour for itself.

Ultimately, the house is a symbol of a life unlived; Lottie realizes this and becomes determined to change at the end.

A third symbol is the horn. Bess’ husband Harry is a traveling musician whom she happily follows. The horn symbolizes experience and passion, but at a price:

She and Harry lived like gypsies. Harry playing in second-rate bands all over the country, even getting himself and Bess stranded in Europe. They were often in rags and never in riches.

The horn represents the rich life that Bess leads—not financially but in adventure and love. When Harry dies and leaves Bess penniless, she weeps

as hard as if he had left her a fortune. He had left her nothing but his horn. There wasn't even money for her passage home.

A fourth symbol is storytelling. Unlike Lottie who has no friends or stories from her life, Bess demonstrates the bounty of experience, human connection, and love through her tales. As the sisters eat their first meal together,

With the glow of good in her stomach, Bess began to spin stories. They were rich with places and people, most of them lowly, all of them magnificent. Her face reflected her telling, the joys and sorrows of her remembering, and above all, the love she lived by that enhanced the poorest place, the humblest person.

Storytelling defies money—its brings intangible but longer-lasting and more meaningful rewards than material possessions.

A fifth symbol is time, which represents a currency like money that should be used wisely. Near the end, Lottie laments having wasted time. In trying to prepare for her later days, Lottie realizes that she never allowed herself to enjoy life:

I saved [money] for them. I forgot the best of them would go without my ever spending a day or a dollar enjoying them. That’s my life story in those few words, a life never lived.

Bess continues this motif of time as currency when she advises Lottie,

Don’t count the years that are left us. At our time of life it’s the days that count. You’ve too much catching up to do to waste a minute of a waking hour feeling sorry for yourself.

Instead of counting dollars and cents, Lottie needs to make her last days count or be meaningful. She cannot squander any remaining minutes or hours.