As the one of the most famous misers in the history of literature, Grandet, the father of Eugenie Grandet from the famous novel written by Balzac, is the first figure shown in my mind when I tried to dig my brain to find something related to greed.
This character is so well-known that although the title and the main character of the novel is her daughter, I believe most people have a deeper impression on him than her daughter. The reason as I insist is that Balzac depicts his impressive avarice successfully. Money is the only thing he concerns. To possess more money, on one hand, he avoid to spend any franc like buying meats and vegetables as well as repairing furnitures. Even though he is the most wealth person in the locality, his family lead a life like poor people. On the other hand, with regardless of the wish of his daughter, his treats her like a tool for defrauding money from her pursuer of her rather than a human. So we are not too surprised when we saw him imprison his daughter after he knows his kind daughter give money to help her poor cousin to make it through.
The capitalist itself can be look upon as a monster--its emergence, the primitive accumulation of capital like the enclosure movement in England and the colonial activities, accumulates wealth by pillaging others', therefore, indirectly results in many death, just like a monster making destruction and hurting people. But Grandet is more monstrous. He not only causes damage to others during his enrichment progress, but also harm his family--theoretically the most important people of his. We can always see criminals miss their family on news. Even the most merciless people may be a kind father when he facing her own daughter. However, Grandet is a walking dead. Money destroy his humanity thoroughly thus there's no soul in his body. Only the endless desire of occupying more money--the "greed".
In spite of money makes people crazy and lost their humanity. Money itself is not the one to blame. Like I said in my last post, there's a monster in everyone's deep heart. For the ones who turn into a monster by money, wealth is like the full moon of werewolf. It awaken the beast in their mind. But think of this question: when we face a werewolf, is the full moon the thing that should take the responsibility of the transformation of the werewolf? Not all people with a contact with a full moon transform to a werewolf; similarly, not all people with considerable money become monster, for instance, Eugenie Grandet, the daughter. The ones who turn into monster themselves should be blame due to their weak defensive power of lure. In other words, they want to become a monster in their deep bottom of their heart and soul. Money is only a catalyst which only trigger and accelerate their transformation but not the most essential factor of the transformation.
This character is so well-known that although the title and the main character of the novel is her daughter, I believe most people have a deeper impression on him than her daughter. The reason as I insist is that Balzac depicts his impressive avarice successfully. Money is the only thing he concerns. To possess more money, on one hand, he avoid to spend any franc like buying meats and vegetables as well as repairing furnitures. Even though he is the most wealth person in the locality, his family lead a life like poor people. On the other hand, with regardless of the wish of his daughter, his treats her like a tool for defrauding money from her pursuer of her rather than a human. So we are not too surprised when we saw him imprison his daughter after he knows his kind daughter give money to help her poor cousin to make it through.
The capitalist itself can be look upon as a monster--its emergence, the primitive accumulation of capital like the enclosure movement in England and the colonial activities, accumulates wealth by pillaging others', therefore, indirectly results in many death, just like a monster making destruction and hurting people. But Grandet is more monstrous. He not only causes damage to others during his enrichment progress, but also harm his family--theoretically the most important people of his. We can always see criminals miss their family on news. Even the most merciless people may be a kind father when he facing her own daughter. However, Grandet is a walking dead. Money destroy his humanity thoroughly thus there's no soul in his body. Only the endless desire of occupying more money--the "greed".
In spite of money makes people crazy and lost their humanity. Money itself is not the one to blame. Like I said in my last post, there's a monster in everyone's deep heart. For the ones who turn into a monster by money, wealth is like the full moon of werewolf. It awaken the beast in their mind. But think of this question: when we face a werewolf, is the full moon the thing that should take the responsibility of the transformation of the werewolf? Not all people with a contact with a full moon transform to a werewolf; similarly, not all people with considerable money become monster, for instance, Eugenie Grandet, the daughter. The ones who turn into monster themselves should be blame due to their weak defensive power of lure. In other words, they want to become a monster in their deep bottom of their heart and soul. Money is only a catalyst which only trigger and accelerate their transformation but not the most essential factor of the transformation.
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