Black Friday is one of the busiest shopping days leading up to Christmas. Consumers stand in line hours if not days before the doors open. The sales begin in the early hours of the morning; typically around 5 a.m. Shoppers save hundreds of dollars on all of the latest gadgets and accessories. But, the insane deals come with a catch. Several customers and employees end up bruised, injured, and even killed during the event. Greed for the lowest price during the holiday season has led to countless fights for a discounted item. Greed is a main theme expressed throughout The Hobbit written by J.R.R Tolkien
In The Hobbit, the plot of the story is filled with greed; often, this leads to disaster. Thorin and company’s greed for not sharing the gold backfires on the group. The group of dwarves’ find themselves stuck in prison. As the group travels through the forest, the Elvish king abducts them. The king has one goal: (Colon) to uncover the motive behind the dwarves in his domain. Thorin instructs his group to keep their journey a secret. The group remains in prison for an excessive amount of time due to the greed of Thorin. To avoid this situation, (Introducer) Thorin could tell the king his real motive behind entering the forest. Thorin believes if the king finds out about the gold, the elves’ will attempt to take a share of the treasure. Foolishly, Thorin decides the treasure is worth more than his freedom, “When they took their spell off him (Thorin) and he came to his senses … he was determined that no word of gold or jewels should be dragged out of him” (169). The greed for recovering all of the gold leads to the group stuck in prison. The king only wants information on why the groups of dwarves ended up wandering through his fore...
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...ess. The greed for fresh wine leads to the escape of the dwarves. Most of the races share a common characteristic, greed which often leads to their downfall.
J.R.R Tolkien artfully depicts in The Hobbit how greed often leads to a disastrous outcome. Greed can strike every type of person, even the leader of a group. Thorin, the leader of the dwarves, is plagued by greed for the wealth inside the mountain. Secondary characters can also be drawn into greed. The spiders attempt to harness the most amount of food for the group, but end up losing all of the food. (Linker) The disastrous end to the antagonists is mainly due to greed. For one, Smaug wants revenge for the missing golden cup. After many days of fighting, Smaug is killed during the battle of the lake men. Society as a whole believes the need for materialistic goods is worth the agony required to obtain them.
It is seen in everything from the hoarding of material objects to the destruction of friendships, both of which are popular themes when regarding the topic of Black Friday shopping. Black Friday has become Black Thursday, a trend which has only shown up within the last decade. The great American holiday that is Thanksgiving is celebrated because of our gratefulness toward all that we have, a holiday that is meant to be spent gathered around a table of our loved ones. However, the retail holiday that consumes the day afterward has begun to overflow into our gatherings, and it is due to the greed of the American people. Were it not for the market’s demand for earlier sales, stores would not open their sales on Thursday nights. Everyone would simply wait until early the next morning to start off on their shopping extravaganzas, and the sales themselves would likely be far less violent as
The destructive force that the play showcases the most is greed because the town of Salem is destroyed, and many people are hanged. Greed is a major part of the story and is shown throughout the play by many different characters. The people of Salem are affected and the town is eventually destroyed because of the selfish acts resulting from greed.
Throughout the whole book, Thorin just displayed a complete lack of respect for human life. When Bard and the Elvenking asked for a share in the gold, Thorin would not even give them a measly twelfth of it to avoid war. Additionally, it would only have been fair to give them some of the treasure after all he put them through. That just shows how little he valued life and how much he valued money. A twelfth of that amount of gold would be a lot, but it is small compared to the eleven twelfths of it that he would get and would still be more than anyone could possibly need in their lifetime. Thorin also didn’t want to tell the Elvenking why they were wandering in the forests when they were captured. He was in jail a long, long time, and it all could have been avoided if he just told them their plans. At that point, he wasn’t even really invested in that treasure. He still wanted it and went all that way to get it, but he wasn’t even close to getting it yet. He could have just made a deal with the elves and split the treasure with them in exchange for their help, but he wouldn’t even do that. Instead, he kept it a secret and stayed in prison with the small hope they could get the treasure in addition to the small chance that Bilbo could help them escape, which he eventually did
Hobbits, Dwarves, and Elves are three main races that dwell in Middle-Earth. However, there are many differences and similarities between these races. For instance, they look widely different and dress differently. They also differ and relate in cultures and differ in their wealth. In addition, their behaviors are vastly different, but their attitudes are the same. In “The Hobbit” those three races share different and similar characteristics including appearances, cultures, values, behaviors, and attitudes.
Thanksgiving Day is a day of family, food, and giving thanks for the blessings in life and yet some people believe Thanksgiving to be a prep day for Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year. The focus of Thanksgiving shifted from family bonding to incessant shopping. This trend of taking away from the hours of Thanksgiving in order to shop is enraging. It steals away from family time for the shoppers and the employees. Employers threaten workers that if they do not work on that certain holiday, they will be fired. Black Friday should be kept to Friday instead of moving in on my family time. The whole culture of Black Friday has become repugnant and unnecessary.
An important example of this is when the Elvenking Thranduil captures Thorin and company in Mirkwood, and Bilbo has to rescue them by sneaking around with his ring. The capture of his friends probably leads to Bilbo disliking Thranduil and considers him an undependable person. However, Bilbo ends up trying to help the Elvenking by offering him the Arkenstone during the Battle and eventually gives him a gift when the war is over, compelling Thranduil to make Bilbo an "elf-friend and blessed" (353). Thranduil also clearly didn 't like Thorin, as a result of thinking that " '[him] and [his] folk three times try to attack [his] people at their merrymaking '" (208), as well as thinking him impolite and untrustworthy. However, when Thorin passes away, the Elvenking "laid Orcrist...that had been taken from Thorin in captivity" (349), showing a sign of friendship and respect, prevailing over the feud the two individuals had at the
Greed. Think of it as a ying-yang, there are two completely different sides to it, but yet they are so similar. Greed is bittersweet. When pandora lift open the box, she let out this character trait. This character trait, “Greed” was identified as “bad”, that is not all to it though. There is always two sides to something, two sides to every story, two sides to every situation, there is a victim, and there is the perpetrator. As humans, the goal is to strive for success, nothing can stop that. As humans, we are born into a greedy society, where everybody wants the best for themselves, nothing can change that. There are limits to greed, limits that if crossed can go from good greed to bad greed. The person that determines the type of greed
The chronicle of The Hobbit is an adventure to regain a long lost home. Brave dwarves and a hobbit endeavor through many treacherous lands and risk their lives in this great campaign. As stated by William S. Brockington, Jr., "Tolkien's fantasy world provides a place where moral values exist and quests can still be achieved." (1467). The final victory is won through the help of many companions the adventurers meet along the way. Had it not been for the setting, characters, and trials in The Hobbit the plot could have never been made possible.
The struggle between good and evil is an ever present theme of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The struggle exists in all of Middle-earth, as the followers of Sauron wage war against the realms of free men and their allies, as well as in individual characters. Boromir, a tragic hero of Tolkien’s work has essentially good qualities marred by his corrupt desires for power and the Ring. The character of Gollum has an on-going internal struggle between the part of him that is corrupted by the Ring and his originally innocent self, Smeagol, who struggles to be good. However, as long as good and evil both exist, redemption is also possible. If Gollum, for example, was portrayed as only evil, and the Smeagol part of him did not exist, the reader would never hope for his redemption, knowing it was already impossible. However, redemption can always be found throughout Tolkien’s work. Reflecting his Christian beliefs, Tolkien often depicts characters redeeming themselves through death. The conflicted characters of the Lord of the Rings demonstrate that if both good and evil exist in a person, redemption is possible at the cost of some sacrifice.
“The ascent of money has led to the ascent of man.”. The greatest question many have sought to answer is the creation vs. evolution debate. How did we get here? Were we created or did we evolve randomly?
Greed can bring out the worst in people, making them do despicable things. The Pearl by John Steinbeck is a perfect example of this. This ‘calm before the storm‘ story portrays how greed drives people in a phenomenal way. It follows a small, poor family that consists of Kino and Juana, on a long rampageous path to heal their child, Coyotito, after he was tragically bitten by a scorpion. Kino and Juana try many things but nothing seems to work, when the doctor would not try to heal their child. Kino stops at nothing to try and save his son, which after finding the “Pearl of the World” (Steinbeck 35) soon transforms into greed. The message of greed is woven in the novella and is a reoccuring theme in The Pearl. From the priest
For many ages the people of the world have fought over many conflictions: Desire, ambition, obligations and influences. For instance, Tolkien writes “One Ring to Rule them all, One Ring to Find them, One Ring to bring them all in and in the darkness bind them” which gives the audience a feeling of uncertainty. Within the J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings desire, ambition, and a level of influence are present that shape the characters choices and affects the world in which they live in.
The best advice I've ever received comes from 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 13 which says "No temptation has come upon you except what is common to men. But God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear, but along with the temptation he will also make the way out so that you may be able to endure it." To this day I take this verse with me through any adversity I may encounter. Growing up I went through struggles most teenagers should not have. My situation at home was far from the picket fence american dream. At a young age I was abused and thrown into a group home. From there I was arrested and even suggested for foster care. No one cared to see what was wrong or try and understand the cry for help that being
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
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.”