Greed in Literature

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that greed has always been a powerful motivator, and greed is one of the main themes in these two works, which seem quite similar at first glance. A closer reading brings out the dissimilarities in these works, but ultimately points to greed as a powerful destructive force in our lives and that society reveres money and possessions above all else.

From the Paper:

"Initially, these two short stories seem quite similar. They are both set in Great Britain, and they both have young boys as their main characters. At first glance, they seem as if they might be stories about growing up in different worlds than we are used to, but underlying this first look are some dark and disturbing themes about how greed can destroy, and how destruction simply for the sake of destruction is a form of greed all its own. Both stories also illustrate how a love of "things" or possessions can become a destructive form of greed, too. Greene notes this in his story, and shows how young juvenile delinquents view possessions. He writes, "'All this hate and love,' he said, 'it's soft, it's hooey. There's only things, Blackie,' and he looked round the room crowded with the unfamiliar shadows of half things, broken things, former things" (Greene 236). The group of young boys tears down the old man's house because they see it as a symbol of everything they do not have, and a symbol of the possessions they would love to own, but do not. They do not see the old man as a human, and so they must destroy everything that is dear to him. This dark tale shows how the greed (as the young boys see it) brings about ultimate destruction, and in this, it is very like "The Rocking-Horse Winner," for greed is the ultimate destruction in that story, too."

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