“Loot” short story character analysis based on Eric Fromm’s theory

“Loot” is a short story with a close reading of the society attitude written by Nadine Gordimer, focusing on the people’s reflection in difficult situations, Here a natural disaster like an earthquake which is totally different to all the other earthquakes, which was regarded unique during the history. Of course, their history with considering the quotation “once upon our time”. This earthquake was regarded different because of the very different and exploitative demeanor of the sea toward greedy and miserable people who forget about their precious life and are besotted with the desire for high-priced objects, it was expected to cause a flood but the sea drew back and revealed the treasures buried deep in the water.

There are three main characters in the story; the people, the old man, and the sea.

The people

People are described as the most unfortunate creatures’ possible, as they have, in a way, lost everything and now they’ve got nothing but their breath. However, in a perilous situation like this, they lose themselves and cannot really decide between the bad and the worse, because of the desire for high-priced objects revealed in seabed which is now filled with all the things the sea already possessed. The writer has illustrated the hoarding character of people in the best way possible by showing their reaction after the drawing back.

The old man

The old man, once well-known and reputed for his role in the former regime, is now forgotten and no more respected by the people but he has kept his life decent and remained important in his own perspective. So he is another looter like the other people but in a more decent way, cause he’s looking for something special, known deeply inside him but not found till now, and revealed to him just as it caught his eye, “A mirror?”. The question mark makes it more complicated because it indicates unreliability. But however, he has this difference and named “the hoarder of hoarders”.

The sea

The sea has got her own treasures buried down in her belly but as the earthquake happened she got her chance to possess the most precious thing, the life of the humankind. So she used her treasures as the best bait she could and took the people’s attention and greed in order to trap them. The sea has an exploitative character because she takes whatever she wants and acts very selfishly.

A review on "The tell-tale heart" short story by Edgar Allan Poe

The tell-tale heart is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, reputed to be the lord of dark short stories, written in 1843. The title can represent what the reader is going to face with, the thumping of a heart, but whose heart? This is what makes the story absorbing because it keeps getting complicated and mysterious, and I love the way writer bombards the readers with questions in their minds. Edgar Allan Poe has written several stories during his short-time life, but most of them are written in horror and gothic genre such as “The tell-tale heart” which has been one of the stories he owes his reputation to.

 

The story begins with the very first words of a nervous narrator, considered a man in my mind, defending himself and trying to prove that he is not mad, he is confessing to a crime though. He keeps explaining how he became motivated by a kind of fear, an unreasoned fear of pale blue eye which he describes as a vulture eye, the old man’s eye, a man who did no harm to him and he had no desire for the old man’s possessions.

 

“He claims that he loves the old man though, how is it possible for the two opposite senses to be combined with each other? The vulture eye is the source of feeling hatred for the old man. Why a vulture eye? A vulture is an animal which eats other dead animals and his duty is based on his own advantage. The madman considers the eye totally separated from the old man because he remembers the old man as an affable man.”

 

But there was something in his eyes that chilled him whenever he looked at them. “He claims that he’s not insane and keeps proving it with only one question: how can a madman have planned such measured actions for a murder and be this much cool and cautious? A ridiculous question. Not even is a petty larceny possible without caution and sagacity and this is what all convicts know.”

 

He is such an artful man that he could deceive the old man and treat him as the best friend he could have had, especially during the last days of his life. For seven nights he goes over the old man’s bed while he’s sleeping and he takes pride in his boldness, but every time he finds the eye closed, so there’s nothing special to go mad with. But when the eighth night comes, the time for the old man to die comes as well. Within the eighth night, he made a low-pitched cackle as he opened the door delicately, for he was thinking of his sagacity and accuracy and the old man woke up and sprang in his bed as he heard his sound.

 

None of them did dare to move for a long time until he decided to open the door a bit more so as to see the eye, so he put a low beam upon the vulture eye, this time wide open, made him seethe with rage. Then he could hear the pounding sound, of course with his honed sense of hearing, it was the old man’s terrified heart. He wanted to hold back but it was getting harder as the sound of the beating heart was growing louder and louder. No more did he keep back with the fear of the pounding sound being heard by any of the neighbors and he knew that it’s time. So he jumped into the room and made the sound ceased with asphyxiating him. He was dead and there was no more beating and then he dismembered the old man’s body and hide its pieces below the floorboards of the room.

 

“There comes to my idea the fact that there is a twist in the plot story. Why didn’t he just make the old man blind and get rid of the eye? Here is the answer, first he had a problem with the old man’s eye but then it suddenly changed to the pounding sound.”

 

The neighbors, having heard a shriek, had called the police and they had come to research. He lets them in and do their research and everything’s fine until he hears the beating of the heart again, assuming that it’s the sound of the old man’s. But it keeps driving him crazy because he thinks that the policemen must have heard it as well and so they must have known about his guilt and they must arrest him, but they do nothing instead. So he thought they’re mocking him as the sound of pounding was growing louder every moment like before and he could resist no more that he cried out and confessed committing the crime.

 

“There is a tricky question, how is it possible to hear the old man’s heartbeat while he is dead? If this sound is imaginary, how does he expect the policemen hear it? What if it’s factual and it is the sound of his own heartbeat confessing in front of the policemen and betraying its own lord and his sanity? And so he is judged by his own body and his guilt is revealed by his sanity.”