Pokhom's Greed

The devil works in many ways, he tries to mess with our heads, put fear within ourselves, make us feel hatred towards others, and to make us believe human nature is only evil. In two short stories the devil tries make two protagonist see only evil. Stephen King’s short story “The Man in the Black Suit,” and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN,” show the devil at his best trying to get the protagonist to see evil. The devil uses his language, and his appearance to meet his motives. He is successful with some of his tactics, but not with all of them.

Most people think of Satan as this red monster with horns and fangs, but he comes in the form of sin. Sins are made to be attractive to us by the Devil. Turkish Delight is Edmund’s favorite food, so the White Witch uses it to gain his trust and manipulate him into siding with her. Satan does the same thing with us. He uses things like lust, drugs, and money, things that may look pleasing to certain people, to entice us into a life of sin.

The devil at the dawn of Christianity bore little resemblance to the ruler of hell, the antichrist and agent of evil that he is known as in present day. Satan makes few overt or implied appearances in the Old Testament. For the important role of God’s greatest adversary, early Christians had to flesh out great parts of Satan’s story in order to develop him into his present, fearsome persona. The Christian story of the Devil is heavily influenced by earlier Greek mythology, and early Christian writings about the Devil co-opted local mythology in order to gain new converts and discredit popular pagan beliefs.

Oftentimes, the devil is depicted as an evil deity sitting in the depths of a burning pit, plotting the demise of mankind and creating all the evils that are in the world. However, in The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis, using a series of letters from an experienced tempter to his protégé, makes the case that this is false. He portrays the devils as a perverted spirit, the opposite of a guardian angel. Unlike God who truly loves man and embraces his individuality, the devil’s main objective is to cultivate humans for food, consuming their uniqueness. “We want cattle who can finally become food… we want to suck in… we are empty and would be filled”[i] Screwtape, the demonic mentor of Wormwood, writes bluntly in his letter in Chapter 8. In their

The consumption of greed The First story I decided to focus my analysis on is “The Arabian Nights” also referred to as “A Thousand and One Nights” by an unknown author. This story begins with the sultan shahrayar and his wife. When shahrayar finds out his wife is unfaithful he kills her and vows to Mary a new woman every night prior to killing her every morning to avoid betrayal. His vizier’s daughter, Scheherazade comes up with a plan to stop shahrayar.

The lack of the banker’s character development proves the theme that greed drives illogical decisions. To start, the banker was “suddenly carried away by excitement” and bet a young lawyer two million dollars that he would not stay in solitary confinement for fifteen years (Chekhov 1). At first, the banker is very wealthy, so he is “delighted at the bet” (Chekhov 2). Even though he intellectually knows the bet is “‘nonsensical’” and does not “‘prove that the death penalty is better or worse than imprisonment for life,’” he ultimately prioritizes his personal desires over saving fifteen years of the

One of the most obvious plot devices used by King to create tension is the Devil’s character. He appears early in the story, and it his menacing nature is established as soon as he is introduced, our protagonist claiming, “I knew right away that he was not a human being, because his eyes were the orangey-red of flames in a woodstove / he had no irises, and no pupils, and certainly no whites.” (King 9). These simple details are enough to establish who the devil was to the protagonist, the

’“ You shall open a brokers shop in Boston next month” said the black man.”’ Tom agrees to do what the black man said, but instead of opening the next month, he tells the devil that he is willing to open it the next day. This is just like in todays society where people bargain themselves down to a point with devil which makes them feel trapped in a corner and they feel like they cannot get out of the hands of the devil. Tom let the devil get a hold on him and then Tom said, “ The Devil take me,” ….. “ if I have made a fathering.”’ Just as soon as Tom said that, the Devil took him and rode him off to never be seen again. The people in the world today think that it is okay to let the Devil show up here and there. In the long run, he is going to have a hold on people and before they realize it they are his people and he will have them doing works for him instead of the

Lucifer was given a remarkable power in heaven, but he rebelled against God with the attempt to over-throw the Mighty Throne. Other powerful angels fought against Lucifer and he was chased from heaven to the earth. And his name changed from Lucifer to Satan, the evil one.

The devil does this in order to obtain Tom Walkers soul. As a moneylender, Tom Walker has very bad morals. When he is a moneylender he puts people out of bussiness and tries to make profit off the peoples losses. Washingtong Irving descrbies Tom Walker as, “Thus Tom was universal friend of the needy, and acted like a ‘friend in need’; that is to say, he always exacted good pay and good security. In proportion to the distress of the applicant was the hardness of the terms. He accumulated bonds and mortgages gradually squeezing his customers closer and closer, and sent them at length, dry as a sponge, from his door” (33). Tom Walker doesn’t seem to care about what his afterlife has in store for him. Everything he is doing is just making him worse as a person. This shows how Tom Walker was greedy and how some people will do anything to make money.

Pokhom was a hard working, dedicated man. By much scraping and pinching, he was able to earn roubles and buy a respectable piece of land of an adjoining property. Whenever he heard about a piece of marvelous land that was good for crops and farming, he was electrified, he tried his best and worked his hardest to earn enough roubles to be able to buy the land of his dreams. His determination and dedicated attitude, made him deserve all the roubles and land that he got. He worked hard to benefit himself and his family. Pokhom worked hard to earn the a thousand roubles by himself, without the help of the Devil. Although the Devil provided all the land, Pokhom was the one who worked hard to try and earn enough roubles to buy the land. In the story, Pokhom encountered a ruined neighbour, who was a poor man that had nothing left and could only sell his property to survive. Pokhom, with all the roubles he had, tried helping his neighbour. He was presented with this

As people grow up, it is made apparent to them that the Devil is an evil and rather a clever person. The greatest example of the devil in action is when the devil tempts Jesus. As most know, the devil fails to get Jesus to do evil. Jesus is both human and divine while the main character of The Devil and Tom Walker, Tom Walker, is a “meager, miserly fellow”. Unfortunately, Tom Walker is not Jesus so the reader must focus in on Washington Irving’s The Devil and Tom Walker to see just exactly how and when the Devil won his game. Irving portrays to the reader that the devil cannot be beaten at his own game through setting, characters, and plot. As people have seen in sports, the setting of a game (where, when, weather, etc.) can have a big impact on the game. The same goes for The Devil and Tom Walker.

already achieve his goal to be a king, he begins to be greedier to not

To begin to understand what the devil does and what the world thinks of him it is important to first find out who he is and if he is even real. While the bible does not often speak of his origins it does give some insight in Isaiah 14:12-15, " You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ But you are brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit.” Satan was God’s right hand angel and then he tried to exalt himself to the same level as God and in turn got cast out of heaven along with his followers, one third of the angels. This sentiment is often

The first major point the author discusses in the document is that the devil was upset that people living on this land that once