âThe Betâ proves that if a person achieved the highest human wisdom he wouldnât care about money or material things at all. He would be like Buddha or Jesus or Gandhi or Socrates, all of whom owned nothing and wanted nothing. The banker, in contrast to the lawyer as Chekhov intended, does nothing to improve his mind over the same fifteen years.
Full Answer
The banker and lawyer make the bet for the same reason that most people make a bet. They each believe that their opinion is right and best, and they are willing to risk something to prove it.
The banker has nothing to gain He probably regrets getting involved in such a contest as soon as he has committed himself. He not only stands to lose a fortune, but he has to keep the lawyer in comfort for as long as the young man chooses to stay. He provides his meals and even offers to serve him wine.
Like the everyday people that the lawyer grows to despise, the banker is ruled by his need to maintain his wealth no matter the cost. He decides to kill the lawyer the night before the bet is completed because he fears that the lawyer will become rich and successful with his money while he himself becomes a beggar.
The banker seems to be acknowledging that he lost the bet by his thoughts and behavior on the night before the term of imprisonment expired. He sneaks into the prisoner's room for the first time in fifteen years with the intention of murdering him after keeping him in solitary confinement for all that time.
They agreed to a bet: if the lawyer could spend fifteen years in total isolation, the banker would pay him two million rubles. The lawyer would have no direct contact with any other person, but could write notes to communicate with the outside world and receive whatever comforts he desired.
Answers 1. The lawyer renounced the bet because during his time in is prison he realized that the money would not afford him true freedom....the money wouldjust become another kind of prison. He didn'twant the money, and he had no desire to become a prisoner of society.
"Gentlemen, I stake two million!" "Agreed! You stake your millions and I stake my freedom!" said the young man.
In Chekhov's "The Bet," the banker and the lawyer both learn the futility of their wager, as they have found that life and its conditions differ greatly from their more youthful perceptions. The lawyer learns that his sweeping statement that life on any terms is better than death is not true.
Taking this idea as the bet, it was shown at the end of the story that the lawyer lost the bet. The rule was clearly stated, âThe slightest attempt on his part to break the conditions, if only two minuets before the end, released the banker from the obligation to pay him two millionsâ (2).
A banker and a lawyer wager a bet at a party. The banker tells the lawyer that if he can endure fifteen years of voluntary captivity, he will be rewarded with two million rubles.
The banker certainly wins the bet in terms of the money that he put up. Because the lawyer left the house before the 15 years were up, he loses and the banker keeps his money.
Anton Chekhov's âThe Betâ sets up a seemingly simple bet about the nature and value of life. The banker, who believes that the death penalty is more humane and moral than life imprisonment, argues that experiences, pleasures, and relationships are what make life worth living.
What were the terms of the bet? Answer: The banker placed a bet of two million which he would give the lawyer if he stayed in solitary confinement for five years.
The emotions and desires that motivated the Lawyer and Banker were greed and competitiveness. Engaging in such a bet reveals that they are very competitive and are not very graceful. These emotions and desires are not appropriate because it makes them unhappy.
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The lawyer in Anton Chekhov 's story " The Bet " is forced to compensate for his confinement by trying to improve his mind through reading, thinking, and writing. He even teaches himself foreign languages. As a result he changes dramatically from being just another professional man motivated by greed and vanity into a sort of holy man who despises material things. Initially the lawyer only had potential. The intelligent reader canât help thinking that he would do the same thing himself if he had to spend fifteen years in solitary confinement. Naturally he would do a lot of reading, and naturally this would improve his mind and change his characterâproviding he chose good books. It is reading that changes all of us. If we read great writers we acquire some of their greatness. That would seem to be the main reason for reading the works of writers like Plato and Aristotle. âThe Betâ proves that if a person achieved the highest human wisdom he wouldnât care about money or material things at all. He would be like Buddha or Jesus or Gandhi or Socrates, all of whom owned nothing and wanted nothing.
If the gatherer gathers too much, nature takes out of the man what she puts into his chest; swells the estate, but kills the owner.
He thinks the lawyer is taking all the risk because the younger man will not be able to stand solitary confinement for more than a few years. The banker actually tries to talk the lawyer out of the bet.
The banker's explanation is also Chekhov's explanation. The bet was the caprice of a pampered man and simple greed on the part of the young lawyer. There is also the certainty, although Chekhov doesn't mention it, that they were both drunk. At any rate, the lawyer begins serving his fifteen-year sentence in one of the banker's guest lodges, and this proves that the bet was made in earnest. The reader forgets about the implausibility of the bet as he becomes interested in the lawyer's ways of coping with solitary confinement, as viewed from the perspective of the banker.
The banker and lawyer make the bet for the same reason that most people make a bet. They each believe that their opinion is right and best, and they are willing to risk something to prove it.
The banker flat out disagrees. He feels that the death penalty is more humane because it ends a man's life quickly instead of drawing out the process over many years.
From that point, it doesn't take the banker long to tell the lawyer to put his money where his mouth is.
The banker further goads the lawyer over dinner, telling him to back out before it is too late. He points out... (full context)
The Lawyer Character Analysis. The Lawyer. Just 25 years old when he attends the bankerâs party at the beginning of the story, the lawyer initially asserts that life-imprisonment is far preferable to capital punishment.
The banker notes that the lawyer is so emaciated by the end of his sentence that he is hard to look at, prematurely aged, and appears ill. This outward appearance contrasts with the lawyerâs own belief that he has bettered himself.
Part 2. It is fifteen years later and the eve of the lawyer âs release. The banker is distraught because he cannot afford to pay the two million rubles. ... (full context) The old banker fears that the lawyer will, having won the bet, become wealthy, marry, and enjoy life the same way he... (full context)
In the second year, the lawyer stops playing piano and starts reading classic books. By the fifth year, he is playing... (full context)
All the wisdom from the books, writes the lawyer, is condensed into a little lump in his skull. He has become cleverer than almost... (full context) The lawyer has come to hold people who appreciate earthly things in contempt, and as such he... (full context) The banker has begun to cry.
The lawyer was imprisoned in the bankerâs garden house in complete solitude. The rules were that no visitors, letters or newspapers were allowed. However, he could write letters, and he was permitted to read books, allowed a musical instrument, wine, and cigarettes. The only communication with the outside world for him would be through a small window through which he could write notes and ask for things.
The first year was tough on the lawyer, he refused to drink wine as wine would lead to desire and according to him desire is a manâs worst enemy. Also he didnât want to smoke as heâd be polluting the little space he was trapped inside. He mainly read light books and played the piano though he was depressed. By the second year he left music and turned toward literature. For the next four years he studied languages, philosophy, history and theology.
Anton Chekhovâs âThe Betâ is a short story that starts out as a conversation between a few people at a dinner, which then turns to an argument between two young and enthusiastic people. The banker and lawyer disagree on the form of punishments, capital and life imprisonment. The banker says capital punishment is more humane than life imprisonment, the lawyer disagrees. Their argument takes a turn when the banker bets two million that the lawyer cannot go through with imprisonment. The lawyer agrees to the bet.
The irony of the story was that the lawyer had reached victory but now his desire for it no longer existed so he purposely lost the bet. His behaviour in the end was unpredictable.
He decides to kill the lawyer the night before the bet is completed because he fears that the lawyer will become rich and successful with his money while he himself becomes a beggar.
Like the everyday people that the lawyer grows to despise, the banker is ruled by his need to maintain his wealth no matter the cost. He decides to kill the lawyer the night before the bet is completed because he fears that the lawyer will become rich and successful with his money while he himself becomes a beggar. Upon finding the lawyerâs note and discovering what he has been through physically and psychologically, however, the banker is racked with guilt and self-hatred for making the bet in the first place. Nevertheless, he ultimately decides to protect himself from possible retribution on the part of the lawyer by hiding the letter in his safe. A complex character, the banker reveals both undesirable truths and redeemable realities of the human condition.
The banker is distraught because he cannot afford to pay the two million rubles. At the time... (full context) The old banker fears that the lawyer will, having won the bet, become wealthy, marry, and enjoy life... (full context) ...the morning and everyone is asleep. The wind howls and it is pouring rain.
On October 13, 1917, Woodrow Wilson stated: âIt is manifestly imperative that there should be a complete mobilization of the banking reserves of the United States. The burden and the privilege (of the Allied loans) must be shared by every banking institution in the country.
Sometimes, the bankers financed both sides. The Rothschildsâ agents, the Warburg banking house, were financing the Kaiser. Paul Warburg, a naturalized citizen from Germany who had been decorated by the Kaiser in 1912, was vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.
The Rothschilds meanwhile bought the German news agency, Wolff, to further control the flow of information to the German people and what the rest of the world would hear from inside Germany. One of the leading executives of Wolff was none other than Max Warburg! The Rothschilds would later buy an interest in the Havas news agency in France ...