Lessons in Greed

A detailed Summary of Lessons in Greed

The Magic Pear Tree, The Wine Well, and The Silver Swindle are specific fairy tales that show the theme of greed being the main flaw of the characters in these stories. Throughout each one of the stories the main character's selfishness comes back to haunt them while teaching a valuable lesson in the end. Greed is the excessive desire for getting or having material possessions. Wars are fought because of it and lives are lost as a result of it. Greed is known as one of the seven deadly sins. It is a very dangerous and evil tool that men are influenced by to gain wealth, women, or anything else they desire. Some might say that obtaining everything from nothing is fate. However, these fairytales show it is not. Eventually greed corrupts peoples judgments and it comes back to haunt them.

In the fairy tale, The Magic Pear Tree, the main character is a farmer who sells very juicy and delicious pears, a fruit that everyone seems to crave. Yet the farmer is disinclined to share with others. An example of the farmers greed is demonstrated when a priest comes to the man asking for just one. The farmer refuses and asks the man to stay away. At first, the priest is hesitant to leave, but the farmer soon becomes even more a

Lastly, as one reads The Silver Swindle he or she will discover the powerful lesson of greed's consequences. The story begins with a money exchanger that does everything in his power to gain valuables, by paying the least amount of money possible. One day an old man comes to his shop to exchange some silver for copper cash. A boy then arrives and delivers a letter explaining the amount of silver that the old man is carrying follows him. The old man asks the exchanger to read the letter because of a disability that he has. The exchanger reads that he is carrying 10 taels of silver, but when the exchanger weighs the silver, he sees that it weighs 11.3 taels. Not knowing that the old man is a con artist the money exchanger comes up with what is thought to be a most ingenious idea on how to swindle the old man. Since the old man can't weigh the silver himself he decides to keep the difference for himself and gives the old man the equivalent in copper for 10 taels of silver. When the old man left the money exchanger learns that he was cheated because the silver was fake. This enrages the exchanger to track down the old man and give him a beating. When the old man is found the surrounding people notices the uproar and comes to his defense. The old man says that what he had given the money exchanger was not fake. The old man then states that the fake silver he was carrying could not be his because it weighed more then the 10 taels that he had exchanged. The crowd becomes infuriated and grabs the exchanger, returning the beating that he had previously given to the old man. This resulted in the exchanger leaving with humility and shame (61-63).

In conclusion, The Magic Pear Tree, The Wine Well, and The Silver Swindle remind people what it is like to be greedy and that everyone has been so one time or another in their life. Most of the time, the feeling of greed develops subconsciously in that people become oblivious to the world around them because they focus too much on that one thing to make them "happy". People may soon lose sight of their real goals and become unaware that they are condemning themselves to living in a world of hate and anger in which they create. Think about society today and how desire and lust leads people to cheat, steal, fight, and kill. Alternatively, remember a time when a friend or a loved one was truly greedy and complained, argued, and became very temperamental to get their way and obtain a specific object. Too much greed makes people lose sight of what is truly important in their life: friends, relatives, compan

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Approximate Word count = 1722
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English