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Essay Samples on Greed
The devil and tom walker': destructive power of greed.
Introduction There is a little to a whole lot of greed going on in society and some psychologists believe America is one the most selfish land to be known right now. Greed skill selfish on desire beyond reason. Capitalism makes us wealthy and a lot...
- The Devil And Tom Walker
Greed and Selfishness As The Main Reason for the Polluted Problems
Let’s start with the factories that manufacture cotton in Kazakhstan. These manufacturers are, of course, very aware of the effect that their production has on the environment and wildlife but chooses to ignore the issue. In her documentary Stacey Dooley investigates: Are clothes wrecking our...
- Selfishness
The Lust for Power in the Play Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Throughout the evolution of mankind, it is evident that power throughout history has greatly affected people and their actions. Accordingly, In the play Macbeth, written by William Shakespeare, one can see that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Macbeth, the main character, is an excellent example of...
- Macbeth Power
The Inverse Ratio Between Greed And Personality
People are the synthesis of natural and social relations. Inside a person always have good sides like generous, brave,... and bad sides such as greed, selfish... A good person will refrain from bad things to show his face well. Human personality is a collection of...
- Personality
Three Lives and Greed: Phases of This Vile Emotion and Aftermath
The book Three lives has a lot of meanings and themes throughout the entire book. There are three parts to this book, with three different parts of the story. The first part of the story is followed by Anna Federner a German woman whose whole...
- Emotional Intelligence
- Personal Qualities
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The Big Greed of America in The Big Short
The Big Short is a very informative book about the events leading up to the U.S. Stock market crash of 2008. Michael Lewis tells this story to give a behind the scenes look into the people who saw this historic crash coming with the blind...
- The Big Short
The Theme of Redemption In Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol"
A timeless theme is a theme for which will never go out of date, but will always stay applicable to the human condition. Audiences understand timeless themes no matter how old or modern the text, because timeless themes are true and connect to the very...
- A Christmas Carol
Greed In 'The Necklace' By Guy De Maupassant
Some people know of the seven sins and seven virtues, greed being one of them, and the story “The Necklace” by Guy De Maupassant, perfectly demonstrates greed. In the story, the main character Mathilde desires and envies others possessions. She is very unhappy with the...
- The Necklace
Transformation of Guilt and Greed in Shakespeare's Macbeth
The play Macbeth portrays the physical and psychological consequences of unchecked political ambition on those who desire power solely for themselves. Macbeth was written when Kings were chosen through divine rights and when a patriarchal society was a norm. In contrast, Shakespeare wrote his play...
- Macbeth Guilt
- William Shakespeare
Best topics on Greed
1. The Devil and Tom Walker’: Destructive Power of Greed
2. Greed and Selfishness As The Main Reason for the Polluted Problems
3. The Lust for Power in the Play Macbeth by William Shakespeare
4. The Inverse Ratio Between Greed And Personality
5. Three Lives and Greed: Phases of This Vile Emotion and Aftermath
6. The Big Greed of America in The Big Short
7. The Theme of Redemption In Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”
8. Greed In ‘The Necklace’ By Guy De Maupassant
9. Transformation of Guilt and Greed in Shakespeare’s Macbeth
- Perseverance
- Personal Experience
- Career Goals
- Being Different
- Actions Speak Louder Than Words
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How to Choose the Topics for the Narrative Essay on Greed
To be simple, greed is an egoistic desire to possess more than one (or even two, three, four, etc.) needs. Greed is what turns the most honest human beings into murderers. Greed turned the lands full of rich resources into the poorest places on the globe. In other words, from the first years of our lives we’re taught that greed is bad and one should never practice it in his/her life.
When you get an assignment to write an essay on greed, you may be 100% sure that you’re lucky! The thing is, the topic you are going to discuss is a broad field to work with and no matter what side you’re going to approach it from; the final result will be good enough to be marked with an “A+”!
So, it’s time to choose the essay topic .
Picture a perfect world where there’s no place for greed. Would it be comfortable to live side by side with others if everyone would be as caring as Mother Theresa was? Provide several touching quotes that were once said by Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. For instance: “There is much suffering in the world – physical, material, mental. The suffering of some can be blamed on the greed of others. The material and physical suffering is suffering from hunger, from homelessness, from all kinds of diseases. But the greatest suffering is being lonely, feeling unloved, having no one. I have come more and more to realize that it is being unwanted that is the worst disease that any human being can ever experience”.
The other point to be considered as the essay topic is the humankind progress and its origin. As we can say, greed has provided the modern society with better, faster, more convenient service and, of course, progress. Moreover, thousands of billionaires have created themselves on the basis of greed. Try to ponder over why greed is usually associated with pure evil? As an example, refer to the famous capitalists like John D. Rockefeller and Cornelius Vanderbilt, who usually are depicted as the natives of hell. Conduct a little of research to find out why they are often called the “robber barons”. A simple hint for you: they weren’t born barons, they both came from poor families, moreover, they didn’t take a penny forcibly from anyone else. Vanderbilt made his fortune by producing faster, bigger ships while Rockefeller got rich by selling oil.
The other example of a really greedy individual – Bill Gates, – is known as the richest person on the globe and still he tends to pursue more and more wealth. It is highly important to mention the fact that just because this guy has more than 40 billion dollars does not mean than the whole world has lost the same sum of money. Make sure to state that he has successfully generated more wealth for other people as well. His products provided people with an opportunity to save money and time and gave new places for work for the rest of the world. To conclude the essay, one can mention that the motives behind the rich people deeds can be called “greed”, but in order to touch the sky, they had to give us a lot!
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Ethics and Morality
Is greed good, the psychology and philosophy of greed..
Updated June 23, 2024 | Reviewed by Kaja Perina
Greed is the disordered desire for more than is appropriate, decent, or deserved, not for the greater good but for one’s own (perceived) interest, and often at the detriment of others and society at large. Greed can be for anything, but is most commonly for food, money, possessions, power, fame, status, attention , admiration, and sex.
The Origins of Greed
Greed can arise from early traumas such as parental absence, inconsistency, or neglect. In later life, low self-esteem coupled with feelings of anxiety and vulnerability lead the person to fixate on a substitute for the love and security that they lacked. The pursuit of the substitute distracts from the painful feelings, while its hoarding provides some degree of comfort and compensation.
Another aetiology of greed is that the trait is written into our genes because, in the course of evolution, it has tended to promote survival and reproduction. Without a measure of greed, individuals and communities are more likely to run out of resources, and to lack the means and motivation to innovate and achieve, making them more vulnerable to the vagaries of fate and the designs of their enemies.
If greed is much more developed in human beings than in other animals, this is partly because human beings have the capacity to project themselves far into the future, to the time of their death and even beyond. The prospect of our demise gives rise to anxiety about our purpose, value, and meaning.
In a bid to quell this existential anxiety, our culture provides us with ready-made narratives of life and death. Whenever existential anxiety threatens to surface into our conscious mind, we turn to culture for comfort and consolation. And today, it so happens that our culture—or lack of it, for our culture is in a state of flux and crisis—places a high value on materialism , and, by extension, on greed.
Our culture’s emphasis on greed is such that many people have become immune to satisfaction; having acquired one thing, they immediately set their sights on the next thing that comes to mind. Today, the object of desire is no longer satisfaction but desire itself.
Can Greed be Good?
Although a blind and blunt force, greed leads to superior economic and social outcomes. Unlike altruism , which is a refined capability, greed is a primitive and democratic impulse, and ideally suited to our era of mass consumption. Altruism attracts passing praise, but really it is greed that our society rewards, and that delivers the material goods and economic growth upon which our governments have come to rely.
Like it or not, our society is fuelled by greed, and without it would soon descend into poverty and anarchy. Greed lies at the bottom of every successful ancient and modern society, including the glorious Athenian and Roman empires, and political systems designed to check or eliminate it have all ended in abject failure.
Gordon Gekko, in the film Wall Street (1987), is especially eloquent on the benefits of greed:
Greed, for the lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge [sic.] has marked the upward surge of mankind.
The Nobel economist Milton Friedman (d. 2006) argued that the challenge for social organization is not to eradicate greed, but to set up an arrangement under which it does the least harm. For Friedman, capitalism is just that kind of system.
But greed is, to say the least, a mixed blessing. People who are consumed by greed become utterly fixated on the object of their greed. Their lives are reduced to little more than a quest to accumulate as much as possible of whatever it is that they covet and crave. Even when they have met their every reasonable need and more, they are utterly unable to redirect their drives and desires towards other and higher things.
Greed is associated with negative psychological states including stress , exhaustion, anxiety, depression , and despair, and with maladaptive behaviours such as gambling, hoarding, theft, deceit, and corruption. By overriding pro-social forces such as reason, compassion, and love, greed loosens family and community ties, undermining the bonds and values upon which society is built. Greed may drive the economy, but as recent history has made all too clear, unfettered greed can also precipitate a deep and long-lasting economic recession.
Last but not least, our consumer culture continues to inflict severe damage on the environment , resulting in, among others, deforestation, desertification, ocean acidification, species extinctions, and more frequent and severe extreme weather events. There is a question about whether such naked greed can be sustainable in the short term, let alone the long term.
Greed and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
The psychologist Abraham Maslow (d. 1970) proposed that healthy human beings have a certain number of needs, and that these needs can be arranged in a hierarchy, with some needs (such as physiological and safety needs) being more primitive or basic than others (such as social and ego needs). Maslow’s so-called ‘hierarchy of needs’ is often presented as a five-level pyramid, with higher needs coming into focus only once lower, more basic needs have been met.
Maslow called the bottom four levels of the pyramid ‘deficiency needs’ because we do not feel anything if they are met but become distressed if they are not. Thus, physiological needs such as eating, drinking, and sleeping are deficiency needs, as are safety needs, social needs such as friendship and sexual intimacy , and ego needs such as self-esteem, prestige, and recognition.
On the other hand, he called the fifth, top level of the pyramid a ‘growth need’ insofar as the drive to self-actualize demands that we break beyond our limited selves to fulfil our potential as human beings. Once we have met our deficiency needs, the focus of our anxiety shifts to self-actualization, and we begin, even if only at a sub- or semi-conscious level, to contemplate our bigger picture.
The problem with greed is that grounds us on one of the lower levels of the pyramid, preventing us from ever reaching the pinnacle of growth and self-actualization. Of course, this is the precise purpose of greed: to defend against existential anxiety, which is the type of anxiety associated with the apex of the pyramid.
Greed and Religion
Because it removes us from the bigger picture, which is God, greed is roundly condemned by all the major religions.
In the Christian tradition, greed, or avarice, is one of the seven deadly sins, a form of idolatry that forsakes things eternal for things temporal. In Dante’s Inferno , the avaricious are bound prostrate on a floor of cold, hard rock as a punishment for their attachment to earthly goods and neglect of higher things.
In the Buddhist tradition, it is craving that keeps us from the path to enlightenment. Similarly, in the Hindu Mahabharata , when Yudhishthira asks to ‘hear in detail the source from which sin proceeds’, Bhishma replies in no uncertain terms that it is from covetousness that sin proceeds.
In Book 12, Section 158 (the Mahabharata is the longest poem ever written), Bhishma tells Yudhishthira:
From covetousness proceeds sin. It is from this source that sin and irreligiousness flow, together with great misery. This covetousness is the spring of also all the cunning and hypocrisy in the world. It is covetousness that makes men commit sin. From covetousness proceeds wrath; from covetousness flows lust, and it is from covetousness that loss of judgment, deception , pride, arrogance, and malice, as also vindictiveness, shamelessness, loss of prosperity, loss of virtue, anxiety, and infamy spring, miserliness, cupidity, desire for every kind of improper act, pride of birth, pride of learning, pride of beauty, pride of wealth, pitilessness for all creatures, malevolence towards all…
The song The Fear (2009) by singer and songwriter Lily Allen is a modern, secular version of this tirade. Here are a few choice lyrics by way of a conclusion:
I want to be rich and I want lots of money
I don’t care about clever I don’t care about funny
…And I’m a weapon of massive consumption
And it’s not my fault it’s how I’m programmed to function
…Forget about guns and forget ammunition
‘Cause I’m killing them all on my own little mission
I don’t know what’s right and what’s real anymore
And I don’t know how I’m meant to feel anymore
And when do you think it will all become clear?
‘Cause I’m being taken over by The Fear
Read more in Heaven and Hell: The Psychology of the Emotions .
Neel Burton, M.D. , is a psychiatrist, philosopher, and writer who lives and teaches in Oxford, England.
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35 Greed Examples (That will make you mad!)
Chris Drew (PhD)
Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]
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Greed is the desire to have everything for yourself and to prevent others from having a fair share. People are usually greedy for resources, money, or power.
Causes of greed include egocentrism, insecurity, and individualism. It’s a sign that you can’t empathize with others and are self-absorbed. It can harm other people, prevent them from having the resources they need to be happy and successful, and may cause poverty and hardship for others.
A simple example of greed is a child not sharing with other children in class. An extreme example is a government official taking taxpayers’ money to buy a mansion.
Simple Examples of Greed
1. Paying your workers a very low salary while making millions yourself.
2. Hiding leftover food from other people while they’re starving so you can eat it later.
3. A student refusing to share their pens with others even though they have more than enough.
4. Making an unfair deal with someone purely because they’re desperate.
5. Taking more than your turn on a theme park ride because you’re having fun while other people are left waiting and don’t get a turn.
6. A child who invites his friends over then plays video games all day long and doesn’t let his friends have a turn.
7. Firing long-time employees just to save a few dollars while making billions yourself.
8. Exploiting natural resources without regard for future generations or the environment.
9. Cheating people in business deals or stealing from them outright.
10. Taking all the firewood in a campsite to have a huge fire while all the other campers don’t get to have a fire because there’s no wood left.
11. Continuing to hoard money when you’ve got more than you could ever spend.
12. Prioritizing food, money, or other commodities over your family and their happiness.
13. Taking someone to court for a crazy amount of money simply because you think you can get a lot of money out of them.
14. Marrying someone for their money rather than for love.
15. Not telling your friends where you got the free icecream from because you want it all for yourself.
16. Taking all of the credit for the success of a group project and not acknowledging the hard work of the rest of your group.
17. Signing up for government food stamps even though you secretly have a lot of money hidden away.
18. Being more concerned with your individual happiness than other people’s basic needs.
19. Sitting on the last seat left on the train when elderly people are standing and in need of a seat.
20. Seeing someone drop their wallet and taking the money out of it instead of handing it back to its rightful owner.
21. A person who evades their personal income tax responsibility. While they may say “well, the government was going to waste it anyway”, the truth is that everyone needs to contribute their fair share in order to keep the roads maintained and keep the fire stations open.
22. A government official who takes hard-earned taxpayer money and hides it away to use on himself instead of spending them money on improving social services.
23. Inflating the price of life-saving medications just because you know people desperately need them and you want to get rich.
Real-Life Greed Examples
24. European Colonial Period – From the 15th to 19th Centuries, the Western European nations (namely Portugal, Spain, France, Holland, and Britain, among others) raced to conquest the world. During this period, they subjugated native populations and committed heinous acts all in the name of becoming the most powerful nation and controlling the whole world.
25. The Toilet Paper Incident of 2020 – When the global lockdowns happened in 2020, people flocked to the shops to hoard toilet paper. People took far more than they personally needed out of fear that it would run out eventually. These people’s panic shopping prevented others from getting toilet paper and caused the problem that they feared: artificial toilet paper shortages worldwide. Stores started limiting how much toilet paper people could buy at once. I remember in late 2021, after all the commotion calmed down, walking past a neighbor whose garage was open. They had floor-to-ceiling stockpiles of toilet paper that would last them years. Meanwhile, others went without.
26. Laisez-Faire Capitalism – Untethered capitalism encourages people to be greedy. The only thing that matters in hyper-capitalistic societies is who has the money. People with money can buy things like healthcare, better education, and just about any product or service. Meanwhile, poor people (who are often in desperate need) miss out because they are pushed to the back of the line. While capitalism can be great for creating market efficiency and lowering proces, it also encourages greed and allows greedy people with money to trample over the poor and needy without feeling guilty – “it’s just how capitalism works!”.
27. Anti-Competitive Market Behaviors – Big companies can make smaller companies go bankrupt by using anti-competitive behaviors. This allows them to hoard all the profits and forces the little guy out of business. For example, a large and profitable online retailer could sell products at artificially low prices temporarily until their competitors can no longer compete. Once the competitors are gone, the large online retailer raises prices, and gets all the profits because they’re the only people selling the product!
28. The 2008 Financial Crisis – One of the factors causing the 2008 financial crisis was the liberalization of mortgage lending. Banks would give out mortgages to people who should not have qualified for a mortgage. The banks did this because they were greedy. They wanted more and more people locked into paying them loan repayments for the rest of their lives! But the banks’ greed came back to bite them in 2008 when so many people couldn’t pay back their mortgages that many banks and insurance firms went bankrupt, causing a global financial crisis.
29. Riba Anasiya – In Islam, there is a belief that charging interest on loans in immoral because it’s the greedy taking advantage of the needy. They use the term riba anasiya to refer to this practice. In many Islamic countries, charging interest on loans is prohibited.
30. Imelda Marcos – The wife of former Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos is reported to have gone on $5 million shopping sprees and owned 3000 pairs of shoes. All the while, the people of her country lived in abject poverty throughout the Marcos dictatorship.
31. Charles Ponzi – The inventor of the Ponzi scheme, Charles Ponzi would ask investors to give him money and he would guarantee a 15% return on their money. He was never able to give that return, so he got more people to give him money, which he used to repay the first people (and spend on himself!). This scheme relied on him swindling money off more and more people rather than actually investing it. His lust for money overcame him, but was his eventual downfall when people caught wind of what he was doing.
Examples of Greed in Movies and Literature
32. Veruca Salt (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) – When Veruca Salt hears that Willy Wonka is giving away golden tickets hidden in chocolate wrappers, she gets her father and his employees to buy out the chocolate bars until they find a ticket. She wins a ticket and gets to go to visit the chocolate factory. In the factory, she sings of her greed: “I want the world. I want the whole world. I want to lock it all up in my pocket.” But fortunately Willy Wonka sees her greed and expels her from the factory.
33. Smaug (The Hobbit) – Smaug is a dragon and the antagonist in the book The Hobbit . Smaug raids the kingdom of Erebor and steals all the gold. He then hoards it deep in a mountain where he hides for 150 years. Due to this, Thorin (a dwarf and protagonist in The Hobbit ) describes him as “a most spectualarly greedy, strong, and wicked worm.”
34. Jordan Belfort (The Wolf of Wall Street) – This film follows a man, Jordan Belfort, in his early 20s who starts out in an entry-level job on Wall Street. As Belfort gets a taste for money, he starts taking riskier and riskier bets. He oversteps the line when he starts defrauding investors in order to feed his greedy desire for money.
35. Ebenezer Scrooge (The Christmas Carol) – Ebenezer Scrooge had more money than heart. He wouldn’t give his employees time off for Christmas and refused to donate to charity! But, thankfully, the book (and movie) embraces the Christmas spirit and gives him a chance to reform his ways.
The Causes of Greed in Society
1. resource scarcity and insecurity.
Resource scarcity refers to the fact that there are only finite numbers of resources in this world. In fact, there’s often not enough to go around.
As a result, people scramble to gather enough resources to care for and protect themselves. They feel insecure about their futures because they worry the tap will run dry.
So, many people don’t just stop when they have enough to fill their stomachs – they hoard resources for their future, which often prevents others from having any resources right now. This leads to hunger and poverty for some and wealth and riches for others.
2. Narcissism and Egocentrism
Narcissism is the extreme belief in your own self-importance and lack of empathy for others. For narcisists, it doesn’t matter what happens to anyone but themselves. They want to be the best and the most powerful.
At the core of narcissism is egocentrism. This is a behavior where you can only see things from your own perspective. You don’t think about how others feel or what they need.
3. Individualism in the West
In Western cultures like my own, individualism is prioritized over the common good. This has many great benefits and has caused great prosperity throughout much of society.
People are encouraged to desire money, fame and power. This motivates them to go out there and produce products, start businesses, and find ways to sell their time and skills to the highest bidder. It generates a lot of industry and money.
But, it also causes people to forget to care for the vulnerable around them.
Sadly, too many people in Western society have used an ideology of individualism to wash their hands of the need to ensure others in their communities have healthcare, homes, and food.
Unfortunately, greed is all around us. But reflecting on the definition of greed and exploring some examples, we can reflect on our own behaviors and whether we’ve been compassionate enough lately. By showing compassion and sharing with the people around us, we may have less power, resources, and money, but we will have a community to care for us and a greater sense of purpose in life. You’ll probably feel much better about yourself as a person as well!
- Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 101 Hidden Talents Examples
- Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 15 Green Flags in a Relationship
- Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 15 Signs you're Burnt Out, Not Lazy
- Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 15 Toxic Things Parents Say to their Children
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Secondary Classrooms 7 Short Stories About Greed for Secondary Students
CommonLit’s digital library contains stories about greed with lessons and discussion questions you can pair with each text.
From ancient myths, to folktales, to modern short stories, the theme of greed is a theme that appears throughout our library.
Secondary teachers can assign these tales of greed individually, or ask students to compare and contrast the stories’ similar messages about how people are driven by greed. Students will love dissecting these fanciful stories while improving their reading comprehension skills and understanding of literary themes.
“ The Emperor’s New Clothes ” by Hans Christian Andersen (6th Grade)
In this classic folktale, an emperor spends all of his money on being well-dressed. The emperor wants extravagant, new clothes, so he hires two weavers to make his new wardrobe. The weavers trick the emperor into parading around naked, fooling him into thinking he is wearing expensive garments.
After reading this story about greed, have students respond to Assessment Question 5, “Why does the Emperor hire the weavers, and how does this contribute to a major theme in the text?” Look for responses that analyze how the Emperor’s actions develop the theme of power and greed throughout the story.
“ The Fisherman and His Wife ” by The Brothers Grimm (6th Grade)
In this folktale about greed, a fisherman catches a magical fish that grants every wish demanded by the fisherman’s wife. At first, the fisherman and his wife are enchanted, but then their wishes go too far, and the fish’s powers backfire.
Teachers can start a discussion using Discussion Question 1, “Is it easier to control greed when a person has access to anything they could want? Why or why not?” Ask students to extend their answers by citing evidence from their own experiences, other literature, art, or history, to support their understanding from the text.
“ The Story of Prometheus and Pandora’s Box ” by James Baldwin (8th Grade)
In this version of the ancient Greek myth, author James Baldwin rewrites the well-known tale of Prometheus and Pandora. The language of this adaptation makes the plot and morals of the story even more accessible to secondary students, as the characters abuse power, seek revenge and justice, and fall victim to their own greed.
To extend the students’ understanding of greed and abuse of power, pair this tale of greed with “ The Stanford Prison Experiment ” from the Paired Texts tab. Have students discuss the central ideas of both texts, and ask, “What can happen if someone is given too much power? How do they act when they feel that their power is threatened?”
“ The Golden Touch ” by Nathaniel Hawthorne (8th Grade)
In this story about greed, Nathaniel Hawthorne retells the myth of King Midas. King Midas wishes for everything he touches to become gold, and wakes up to his wish come true. In an attempt to comfort her shocked father, Midas’ daughter goes to hold him and is turned into a golden statue. Midas despairs, and seeks to reverse his power so that he can have his daughter back.
After reading this story, assign informational text “ You Can Buy Happiness, if It’s An Experience ” from the Paired Texts tab. Have students contrast the news article with Hawthorne’s story to strengthen their reading comprehension of both stories and informational texts.
“ The Treasure in the Forest ” by H.G. Wells (9th Grade)
In this short story about greed, two men in search of a buried treasure let their greed get the best of them. In their attempts to uncover the treasure at any cost, they attempt to pull up the treasure from underneath a dead man’s body. In doing so, the men end up poisoned by the thorns that surrounded the dead body, preventing them from reaching the gold.
Engage students in the theme of greed by showing “ The Science of Greed ” in the Related Media tab. Continue the discussion by asking, “How does wealth and power affect people? Can these effects be avoided?”
“ The Necklace ” by Guy de Maupassant (9th Grade)
In this short tale of greed, a woman who yearns to appear wealthy at a fancy dinner borrows her friend’s diamond necklace and loses it. She buys a replacement, landing herself in debt that she spends a decade working to repay. Only after her years of tireless work, she finds out that the necklace she lost in the first place was not made of real diamonds after all.
Spark a deeper investigation of the main character, Mathilde, using Discussion Question 3, “Consider Mathilde’s motives throughout the text. What role does greed play in this story?”
“ The Pied Piper of Hamelin ” by Robert Browning (10th Grade)
This poem about greed tells the German legend of the Pied Piper, who can get rid of all the town’s rats with his flute music. The Piper leads the rats to drown in the river as they follow his music. But when the mayor of the town refuses to pay the Piper, he seeks revenge on the town, leading all the children of the village into a portal where they disappear forever.
Use our online reading program to create a custom annotation prompt when assigning this reading lesson. Ask students to annotate for the characterization of both the Pied Piper and the Mayor. After annotation, have students discuss what roles both characters play in developing the story’s theme of greed.
Looking for more stories about greed for your ELA curriculum? Check out our Power & Greed Text Sets for collections of powerful stories and nonfiction texts or come to one of our webinars!
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Home / Essay Samples / Life / Greed / Greediness and its Management: A Psychological Perspective
Greediness and its Management: A Psychological Perspective
- Category: Life
- Topic: Desire , Feeling , Greed
Pages: 1 (661 words)
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How Can You Combat Greed is Your Own Life?
Is there a way to help others deal with greed, ego, greed, or misguided thinking, which is the toughest to combat in your life, can you think of other issues that might lead to unethical behavior, does culture care about greed, ego, or misguided thinking does it care about ethical behavior.
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