Chekhov The Bet

Thomas Paine originally came from Thetford, United Kingdom, born into a Quaker family. Paine received little formal education from Thetford Grammar School in the years 1744 to 1749, but learned standards for an educational foundation such as reading, writing, and arithmetic. In his youth, he worked alongside his father as a stay maker and “later worked as an officer of the excise, hunting smugglers, and collecting liquor and tobacco taxes” (Biography). Unfortunately, Paine was unsuccessful in his work attempts despite holding multiple jobs while living in England. After his termination as an excise officer, he met Benjamin Franklin who convinced Paine to move to America and provided him with letters detailing life in the new nation.

To begin with, life imprisonment is a more humane option. When given a death penalty, the prisoner is left with no other options but to die. As a result, the person

The death penalty is proven to not deter criminals from committing a crime punishable by death. There are many arguments on whether the death penalty should be legal, but the debate boils down to personal morals. The death penalty is immoral. Criminals will act on their drive, with no thoughts about future consequences. The death penalty not only hurts the criminal, but it affects the criminal's family. The family already had to experience what it felt like to see a loved one take an innocent person's life. This causes emotional unnecessary emotional distress for the family and those close to the person on death row. Murdering the criminal will only put the family through even more unnecessary trauma. Furthermore, humans are not pets. The human race should not be able to put others down in the sense of death. It is dehumanizing for the person sentenced to death and the executioner. There should not be a job in the United States where, in the job description, it states that you will kill someone.

When released they go back out in society and commit the same crime or a crime worse than before. Sentencing them to life in prison places other prisoners and staff at risk. When placed in jail knowing they have nothing else to lose with a life sentence, society has now let a murderer free in jail to murder at will. However, if released into society you now put an entire population of individuals at risk. Wesley Lowe, author of “The Morality of Capital Punishment:” on the “ Pro Death Penalty Webpage,” states the following, “The recidivism rate for capital punishment is zero. No executed murderer has ever killed again. You can’t say that about those sentenced to prison even if you are an abolitionist”(27).

The world that we live in today have people who commit unforgivable crime by hurting others and making society feel unsafe. Individuals who perform serial crimes towards our society must face some kind of punishment, determine by the court justice and the people. Unfortunately, the capital punishment made by people and those with authority take justice on their own hands intensively. It is surprising how preventing others to commit the same crimes or worse have been taken so far. Everything is making that person feel unsafe and without hope of any kind. We must be considerate and realized that we make mistake, but we need to learn from it and have another chance to make things right. Prison it is a way to punish and give a second chance to a person even if it is for the rest of their life. We must never take a life for another life, because we will be becoming a criminal as well. The wrongful acts of punishment in this society is to create deterrence, torture, and self satisfaction; instead of just putting criminals in jail without deciding if they should stay alive.

A prisoner’s life consists of twenty-three hours per day in a tiny, empty concrete cell, with one hour of daily exercise in a small concrete swimming pool; they have no access to other inmates, and only rare contact with guards, who say nothing to them; they can see nothing of the outside world except a tiny sliver of sky. The death penalty as punishment is an unnecessary threat compared to the dullness of what prison life is like.

1. Being in prison for life is tough enough, life imprisonment breaks down one’s mental health which is more detrimental and serves more as a “payback” to the murderer.

The death penalty is something many people face each day . There is approximately 1,188 people that were executed in the U.S from 1977 through 2009 . There are many ways on how to execute someone, but primarily we use the lethal injection. The way people are trailed and put on the death penalty, is because of the involvement with first degree of murder, or other crimes. Proponents say that the death penalty is an important tool for preserving law and order. They also argue a term “an eye for an eye” which means that it helps the families grieving, and ensure that they don’t release back to the public for future tragedy. The people against the death penalty say that it is wrong to take a human life, and has no effect on crime. Many of the death row inmates prefer death over life in prison. They say that many death row inmates have been volunteering for their executions. Over 75 inmates have volunteered for their death sentence. This is called a state-assisted suicide. Many inmates said that they would rather gamble on being executed than having life parole. Many inmates say that they spend over a decade awaiting execution. Some prisoners have been in death row for 20 years. They usually are isolated from other prisoners and spend as much as 23 hours alone in their cells. The two punishments they receive other than the death penalty is the living conditions they live in prison. They are usually in a state where they would be executed and,

A short story’s purpose is to introduce an idea or moral to the reader. In many cases the reader can understand the thesis, but there will be times where the reader is uncertain. The reason for this is because the short story’s moral is profound ironically. Ultimately the reader is able to relate to him or herself in the short story various ways. Likewise the use of irony in, “The Bet” by Anton Chekhov, illustrates the characters and their opposing speculations that demonstrate the importance of human life and confinement. Relating to the thesis of the short story, there are three main points that irony plays a key role on. To begin with, there are the two main character’s roles that guide the reader though both perspectives of their conflicts. There are also main points in their dialect and involvement that Chekhov used to help the reader understand the character’s ironic speculations.

After reading this novel it opened my eyes to how things can change over time also how people can begin to worship one person and not process thoughts for themselves. In this book there was many followers and only one leader thought-out the book. George Orwell made everybody at the beginning of the book equal but towards the end things started to change. In Animal Farm, the author George Orwell uses selfishness and manipulation of the leaders and by the followers being persuaded to contribute to the loss of freedom and equality in order to show how people can become so dependent on one person.

"An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" (Bible). The death penalty seems like a fair execution for inmates who have committed murder. In reality, people need to realize that they're putting the blood of another person on their hands, the death of a murderer will not make a victim return back to life. It makes them as guilty as the person who committed the crime, but the only difference is that they didn't use a weapon. The whole purpose of criminal justice is to prevent crime and rehabilitate convicts. Life in prison allows inmates to change and pay for their crime but the death penalty will just give them an easy way to escape. Capital punishment brings no benefits and should be abolished because of its cost, discrimination and condemns who were innocent.

In high school I read a short story called The Bet by Anton Chekhov. The story was about a young lawyer who made a bet with a banker that imprisonment for fifteen years was better than the death penalty. Like Socrates in Plato’s Crito the lawyer was trying to challenge society’s beliefs. While in confinement the lawyer read many books, whose subjects ranged from languages to philosophy. After fifteen years of solitary confinement the lawyer rejects his prize money and defaults on the bet, hours before winning. I wonder if the man had read the Crito. We can reason that Socrates’ could have inspired the man to decide to pick the more brash choice to try and teach his accusers a lesson. The man may have decided to default on the bet when he was so close to winning because he wished to make the lesson the banker learned more memorable and infinite. In the Crito even though Socrates thinks himself to be innocent of the charges brought against him he still refuses to escape prison when presented with the opportunity. This helps him teach his final lesson about the principles he believes are worth dying for. His principles are that the opinion of the many is unimportant, his life is not worth living with a corrupt soul, life is not as important as living justly, the only consideration to take into account is justice, and acting unjustly is always bad and shameful. Even though Socrates and the polis or laws arrive at the same conclusion that Socrates should not escape prison, the

Lifetime imprisonment and the death penalty are both punishments used for serious criminals who can be considered “a threat to society”. Life imprisonment can come with the option of possibility of parole throughout serving their sentencing or a life sentence without parole. The life sentence is a commonly used punishment between the two due to the fact in the United States of America only 31 of the 50 states still use the death penalty. The remaining states are left with a death penalty ban. Between the two punishments, the life sentence is the most practical and provides the most justice for the wronged compared to the death penalty that is very costly, inhumane but almost too easy and can and has put innocent lives at risk.

Though Anton Chekhov's "The Bet" was written in a different country at a different time, it portrays a timeless theme; greed is a crippling trait of mankind. This message can be seen through the author's use of characterization of both the lawyer and the banker. The banker was a static character; he was greedy from start to finish. The lawyer was a dynamic character and he saw the wrong in his ways and changed them in the end.

The first day at my new school. I should be ecstatic, but I'm not. I'm anxious, moving to Marysville in the middle of spring break. What if I don't fit in? I didn't really fit in at Cardington. Everyone was all about hunting and softball and I just wasn't. But Marysville isn't some hick village, this place is bigger. Meaning a larger variety of people.