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Definition essay on greed
Introduction on Greed
Greed shaping modern society
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Greed According to Vocabulary.com, greed is an overwhelming urge to have more of something, usually more than one really needs. Greed is often connected with money, a desire to acquire as much of it as possible but it can refer toward anything, like food or material possessions. Greed is not merely " I want more". Greed is "I want more than everybody else". To thefreedictionary.com, greed is defined as an excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth. Anyone can find a bit of greed in anyone else. Everyone wants more than they deserve. The "drunk uncle" sits around the house all day and complains that he can't get a job or the local retail store isn't paying him enough. Why does he deserve the job? There are plenty of unemployed people who aren't able to find jobs and people who are more deserving to get a raise. The "uncle" wants what he doesn't deserve. The best example of greed comes from Khaled Hosseini in The Kite Runner. “That same night, I wrote my first short story. It took me thirty minutes. It was a dark little tale about a man who found a magic cup and learned that if he wept into the cup, his tears turned into pearls. But even though he had always been poor, he was a happy man and rarely shed a tear. So he found ways to make himself sad so that his tears could make him rich. As the pearls piled up, so did his greed grow. The story ended with the man sitting on a mountain of pearls, knife in hand, weeping helplessly into the cup with his beloved wife's slain body in his arms.” This example continues to shock me. Giving up the love of your life, so that one could have all the pearls in the world. It just doesn't seem worth it. But the main reaso... ... middle of paper ... ...made him and gave him the ability he has just used." But Shiva merely scowled and vanished. (Hinduism.Skanda Purana 1.1.21) He who considers wealth a good thing can never bear to give up his income; he who considers eminence a good thing can never bear to give up his fame. He who has a taste for power can never bear to hand over authority to others. Holding tight to these things, such men shiver with fear; should they let them go, they would pine in sorrow. They never stop for a moment of reflection, never cease to gaze with greedy eyes--they are men punished by Heaven(Taoism. Chung Tzu 14). As one can see, every major religion recognizes that suffering and evil are caused by excessive desires or desires directed toward the selfish purpose. Habeeb Akande said "the difference between greed and ambition is a greedy person desires things he isn't prepared to work for".
“Greed is so destructive. It destroys everything” Eartha Kitt (BrainyQuote). F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel The Great Gatsby is about a man named Gatsby, who is trying to regain the love of a girl who he used to date to get back together with him. Gatsby’s only problem is that Daisy, the girl he is in love with is married to Tom. The story is told through the eyes of Nick Carraway, Daisy’s second cousin, once removed, and Gatsby’s friend. This allows the reader to know about Tom’s secret relationship with Myrtle Wilson and also allows the readers insight into Gatsby. According to Dictionary.com greed is “excessive or rapacious desire, especially for wealth or possessions”(Dictionary.com). Gatsby tries to get Daisy to fall in love with him, even though she is married to Tom. Gatsby throws elaborate parties that last all weekend in the hopes that Daisy will attend one. Greed is a major villain in The Great Gatsby through Gatsby’s chasing of Daisy, Myrtle’s cheating, and people using Gatsby simply for his wealth.
“The point is that you can’t be too greedy,” says Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States. Many people look up to him as he is apparently now president. The definition of greed is an intense and selfish desire for something especially wealth or power. Greed is a part of human nature. The main character, Tom Sawyer experiences it quite often in the book. Thomas Sawyer is an eleven-year-old boy who lives with his aunt in a small religious town. One of the themes that Mark Twain explores in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is that everyone has some amount of greed in them. Three examples that support this theme are when Tom risked his life in the search for gold, Tom tried to get Becky by making her jealous, and when Tom and his friends ran away because they didn’t feel appreciated.
“Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.” -Erich Fromm
It would be easy for the reader to think that the greed began once Trina won the lottery, but there are a few incidences where the nature of greed can be found. For example, when McTeague was buying his tickets for the theater. McTeague demands and makes quite obvious that he does not want to sit on the side of the orchestra where the drums will be played. “I want four seats for Monday night in the fourth row from the front and on the right-hand side.”
Ptah-hotep’s maxims are considered the first set of manners for men to pass down to their sons. Some of the maxims discuss how to treat the great and how to pick a leader, while others talk about behavior and how to be kind to one another. According to the oxford dictionary greed is defined as an intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power or food. Greed can be portrayed though some literacy including The Pearl by John Steinbeck and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Both authors convey the idea of greed and how it affects people and the people surrounding them.
In Chapter 4 of a book titled Escape from Freedom, the famous American psychologist Erich Fromm wrote that "Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction" (Fromm 98). Fromm realized that avarice is one of the most powerful emotions that a person can feel, but, by its very nature, is an emotion or driving force that can never be satisfied. For, once someone obtains a certain goal, that person is not satisfied and continues to strive for more and more until that quest leads to their ultimate destruction. For this reason, authors have embraced the idea of greed in the creation of hundreds of characters in thousands of novels. Almost every author has written a work centered around a character full of avarice. Ian Fleming's Mr. Goldfinger, Charles Dickens' Scrooge, and Thomas Hardy's John D'Urberville are only a few examples of this attraction. But, perhaps one of the best examples of this is found in William Shakespeare's King Lear. Edmund, through his speech, actions, and relationships with other characters, becomes a character consumed with greed to the point that nothing else matters except for the never-ending quest for status and material possessions.
The process of defining the sin of greed involves first to analyze and interpret each source individually, and then to establish the main comparison between all three of them. Together, the sources establish that greed is the sin of excess. The desire of having more of what the characters value most, in this case, self-recognition and supreme control. All three describe a lust that was taken too far, but still was not satisfied. This is one of the effects of holding greed in one’s heart. Greed can be taken too far without knowing where the line was crossed. However, there is a downside to this technique. If the major similarity is established as the definition of the sin, the source that is different in comparison to the others is devalued. When establishing a definition by referring to several different sources, the middle ground between all the sources is taken into consideration the most. From the three sources, some key aspects have to cut out to attain a definition that fits all three sources together, not just one. For instance, Jack from Lord of the Flies greeds for authority and complete control over the rest of the boys on the island. However, in Pretty Little Liars and Gossip Girl, both CeCe and Dan focus more on
Greed is a sin of excess that every single human being has at least a little bit of. When someone has the opportunity to get as much of something as they possibly can, they will go to great lengths to get everything out of it. In the story “The Monkey’s Paw,” by W. W. Jacobs, the White family experiences a big test of greed, and they even tamper with their fate to get it. Before the Whites even knew about the paw, they were living a normal, but decent, lifestyle that got them by day-to-day without any troubles. Once they received this one idol in their life that could grant any three wishes that they could possibly think of, their mind set was altered and their greediness to change their fate kicked into play. Jacobs uses themes of greed, the danger of tampering with fate, and horror to portray the terrible events that happen to the Whites.
This statement might be economic theory, but it also might be a theory about human nature as well. It could explain why it is, that when human beings are prohibited from having something that they want, (especially by others who feel they are superior), they will go to any length to get it.
Greed is an intense desire for something, particularly wealth or power. It has roots in American society that go much deeper than the last couple of centuries; greed was clearly sweeping over the community even in the 1700’s. It is even evident in popular stories that are retold to this day. In the short story “The Devil and Tom Walker”, Washington Irving uses setting, theme and the characterization of Tom Walker to highlight the effects of greed, as well as show how one is willing to compromise anything if it means they will get something out of it in return.
The Oxford Dictionary explains greed as, “[I]ntense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power, or food” (Ostler, 258). Humans are no strangers to greed. In small amounts, it is healthy and needed to be successful. However, once greed gets to a certain point, it can take over a person’s feelings and behaviors. Raymond Carver gives a sinister example of the consequences of greed in his short story “Popular Mechanics”. To provide scientific evidence, many studies have been done to try to understand the effects of greed on a person. There are many modern day examples of tragedies that have occurred due to greed. One example of this is the Menendez brothers and how they murdered their parents for their fourteen million dollar estate. Greed is a mental illness that in unhealthy amounts can alter a person’s behavior and feelings.
Since time immemorial, people have been trying to institutionalize moral values. love kindness, patience, contentment are just a few out of the plethora of positive traits. However, mankind being imperfect beings can never achieve perfection. Of all the vices that human possess, greed could be said to be the most influential. It is the distinct opposite of contentment and the very trait that has cause the fall of many countries. Perhaps most disturbing is that fact that greed has also torn apart countless families who would have otherwise been living in happiness. Indeed, one may say that greed is worthy to be one of the greatest sins. Yet there are those who proclaim that greed is necessary for mankind to evolve and rise above themselves. Such is the paradox of our time.
Greed, being a key human condition, has shaped society from the very start. In fact, some scholars believe that greed was the first major milestone of human success, when the first human wondered why he/she had to scrounge around for necessities; it is a part of being human to be greedy. Wanting a new car, to be loved by another, or to desire the feeling of well doing when feeding the needy, these are all factions of greed...
Evver since I was a little boy, I have always been ambitious. But who wasn’t? Before writing this paper, I did a little research to help me better understand the different forms of ambition, and if it differs between younger and older groups of people. I sat and asked my little brother what he ...
Greed is so powerful in a person that it has the ability to destroy them, their friends, and family relationships. I have lived in the poorest country my first nine years, so when I was adopted, my mom gave me everything I ever wanted, everything I ever needed. However, using myself as an example, I was so mesmerized of the materialistic things that were available, that I stole. I took something that was not mine because I felt greedy. I felt like I needed that object for whatever reason. My mom tore my butt when I got home and I never thought of steeling because of my own selfish need of wanting. Not to mention how greed made me afraid. It made me afraid because I knew what I did was wrong. People are constantly being bombarded with images of things that we believe will make us happy and the selfish thoughts of greed makes us wanting more. For example, the iPhone 6 Plus came out September of 2015, now there is iPhone 7 which has new camera zoom, ear pods, and better quality. However, the week before it was released, everyone talked about wanting it because it’s the new “cool” thing. However, what people fail to understand is that the reason they want