When a person gets greedy it can take over their personality and potentially harm others. In the story “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, greed had taken over Aylmer to the extent that he actually killed his wife, Georgiana, to get what he wanted. Soon after Aylmer and Georgiana had gotten married, something stood out to Aylmer more than it had ever done before. The birthmark on Georgianas face seemed to torment Aylmer. He wanted it gone. At first he tried asking her politely if she would get it removed and she said that she liked it, she thought of it as a charm. Georgiana was hurt that Aylmer thought of her as imperfect because of a small blemish. Georgiana had a great love for her husband so she decided that she would let him try and remove it and she was well of the consequences. “Let the attempt be made, at whatever risk. Danger is nothing to me; for life, while this hateful mark makes me the object of your horror and disgust - life is a burden which I would fling down with joy. Either remove this dreadful hand, or take my wretched life!” (Hawthorne 221). When Georgiana said that she didn't expect that both of those things would happen. Aylmer’s greed was so great that he was willing to put his wife's life in danger just to remove the small blemish on her cheek.
Greed can also make a person perform very selfish acts. In the story “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway, the man is extremely greedy and wants the women to get an abortion. The man and woman were having such a great time together, traveling and staying together, outside of marriage. But after the woman discovered she was pregnant the fun had come to an abrupt stop. The woman is relaxing and trying to get her mind off of this out of marriage pregnancy when the man says to her that she should just go get an abortion. He makes the abortion seem like it's no big deal and that everything will be perfect after and everything would go back to normal. “It's really an awfully simple operation Jig, it's not really an operation at all” (Hemingway 115). The woman does not feel the same. She feels as if everything has changed and there is no way to go back to the way things were, whether she gets the abortion or not. The man says if she gets this abortion then the whole world is theirs again but the girl wants to give the world to the baby so when she says that she’ll get the abortion and the man says that the world is theirs then the woman says that it will never be theirs anymore. “No, it isn't. And once they take it away, you never get it back” (Hemingway 116). The man was extremely greedy and he convinced the woman to get the abortion even after he knew she didn't want to.
Greed is shown in our daily lives many more times than we recognize it. A song that has been playing a lot on the radio lately that is all about greed is “One Last Time” by Ariana Grande. In this song, Ariana speaks of a man that she had been with but now she is not with him anymore and he is seeing someone else now. She starts off by saying that she wasn't being a very good girlfriend. She says that she knows that he is with another woman now and that the other woman can give him everything and she knows that she can't. She says that she has nothing now that he is gone. “And I know, and I know, and I know she gives you everything, but, boy, I couldn't give it to you and I know, and I know, and I know that you got everything, but I got nothing here without you” (Grande 9-14). She's asks him if he would stay with her just one more time. She admits that she was wrong and she asks him for his apology even though she knows she does not deserve it. She actually admits that she does not even care if the whole time that they are together he is thinking of her and loves her, she just wants to be with him one last time. “Baby, I don't care if you got her in your heart all I really care is you wake up in my arms one last time I need to be the one who takes you home” (Grande 19-22). This song is a perfect example of greedy behavior. Ariana does not care about the consequences in his life, she is just thinking selfishly and wants him to be with her one last time.
Greed has made many people do things that they normally would not. This has been proven in the stories “The Birthmark” and “Hills Like White Elephants” and also the song “One Last Time”. In “The Birthmark” Aylmer hated Georgiana's birthmark so much that he let his greed take over and control his life. The consequence of his greedy actions actually took his wife's life. In “Hills Like White Elephants” the man put his greediness over the woman's wants and happiness. He forced her to get an abortion even though she didn't want to. In the song “One Last Time” Ariana showed greed when she said that she didn't care if he loved another woman she just wanted him one last time. Greed can take over someone’s normal personality and change them into someone that they do not want to be and that was proven in both of the stories “The Birthmark” and “Hills Like White Elephants” and the song “One Last Time”.
Sources:
Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. The Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th Ed. ed. Print.
No comments:
Post a Comment