The Rise Of Silas Lapham Selfish Quotes

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In William Dean Howells’ novel, The Rise of Silas Lapham Silas is a very greedy selfish person who does not care about anything except climbing the social ladder. He has false social aspirations and his lust for power help his business to flourish as he rips people off and steels people’s money. As Silas begins to get higher and higher on the social ladder he begins to realize that his dreams are empty and have no real value as he achieves them. His greed and selfishness then come back to haunt him causing him to feel pain over things that he had done and while trying to rectify his wrongs he goes too far and fails his business. Silas Lapham’s character shift from selfish greed to honest unselfishness caused the collapse of his business and the loss of his money. In the beginning of The Rise of Silas Lapham the character of Silas is already very rich and very successful, but as you go deeper into the character there are problems that arise. After Lapham runs into Rogers, an old business associate whom he had forced out of the company, he tells his wife, “ I hadn’t anything to say to him…I supposed he was dead…[and] I should want you should recollect in the first place, Persis, that I never wanted a partner.” (46). Lapham has no regrets about what he did to Rogers, and it is this selfishness that caused his business to sky rocket. After the …show more content…

Silas now has nothing to lose so when the chance arises to sell the mills that he owns for a good amount of money he does not take it because he does not want to scam anyone anymore. When Rogers finds out he says, “You’ve ruined me...I haven’t a cent left in the world! God help my poor wife.” (331) As Rogers leaves Silas feels like he has done the wrong thing when in reality he did the right thing in not scamming more people but all it got him was more

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