Richard Cory Theme

"" was written byin 1897 and
reflects a period of high income inequality in the United States, exacerbated by the Panic of
1893, a depression caused in part by bank runs. 

The first theme of the poem
is economic inequality. Rather than wealth being distributed evenly within the town, it is
unequally distributed, causing significant social stratification. Although Cory is apparently
polite and not disliked, there is a vast social gulf between him and the townspeople and no
possibility of friendship or even shared activities and interests.

The second
theme is that money does not bring happiness. Although Richard Cory was "richer than a
king", he still committed suicide.

A third theme is the impossibility of
knowing what happens within the mind of other people. The nameless narrator of the poem observes
Richard Cory from the outside, thinking:

In fine, we
thought that he was everything

To make us wish that we were in his
place

The narrator, though, has no idea whether Cory is
actually happy or not or whether his "place" is pleasant.