Melchols Essay

Happy endings don’t come with ill-gotten wealth but yet, the taunting spirit of greed leads characters like Marion and Tom Walker into their fateful death. In the short story, "The Devil and Tom Walker", written by Washington Irving, is about Tom Walker who starts out with a miserly life with a grouchy wife to only make a pact with the devil and live as a corrupt money lender. In the movie, Psycho, directed by Alfred Hitchcock is about Marion Crane who steals forty-thousand dollars from a rich client, runs away and stops at the Bates Motel. She is killed by "Norma" Bates, a second personality of Norman Bates and her murder is left to be resolved to her sister, Lila and her boyfriend, Sam. These two plots share a main character that comes from meager backgrounds and have an opportunity to gain wealth but from unethical means. Both

The prominent theme in the thriller movie, Psycho and the short story, "The Devil and Tom Walker", is that greed has its consequences with the suspenseful and uneasy atmosphere which was developed by the high, overwrought emotion.

Without the proper atmosphere that the plot needs, the thematic ideas such as greed has its consequences, will become meaningless. The foundation of Psycho was the climatic atmosphere that brought on the movie’s rise of fame to be the classic thriller. The shadow of the killer that repeatedly stabs Marion and the screeching violins that play throughout this scene immersed the audience into the movie so that they were in the Cabin number One. Even Marion's death was foreshadowed by her drive to Fairvale, the irony of ending up at Bates Motel and the setting foreshadow her tragic end. In Gothic literature, storms frequently accompany large events and they are metaphor of horr...

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...left in doleful plight, and the whole country resounded with the consequent cry of 'hard times'" (183). Tom had eagerly accepted a job where he would have to lend money at excessive rates at a time of public distress. Tom "squeezed his customers" to accumulate the wealth that he had longed desired. This greed lead to the moral corruption of Tom Walker and he was already in a state of poor moral character. Irving showed his criticism of North England's cities by commenting about city breeds crime, as Tom goes from the interior country of Charles Bay to go to Boston for his new job.

Though Irving and Hitchcock chose death as the ultimatum ending for their main characters, in reality the consequences tend not to be that dire. The exaggeration of the consequences point out the crucial theme that actions motivated by greed, no matter the intentions, are destructive.