In The Bet by Anton Chekhov, the lawyer voluntarily accepts to stay in prison for 15 years, instead of the original agreed upon 5 years.
What is one way the lawyer has changed from the beginning of the story to the end? He has lost his wealth. He has learned how to do complex math equations.
When he initially agrees to the bet, the lawyer is young and callow, and as such the first books he reads are “light,” selected to pass the time. He later asks for more substantial literature, which ultimately frustrates him to the point that he stops reading entirely.
In "The Bet", the lawyer looks terrible, much older than his 40 years. Why? He hasn't seen any sunlight, hasn't been with any friends, been in confinement for 15 years. He might be stressed from it.
In the end of the story, "The Bet," the lawyer despairs of life, and he reneges on the wager with banker. In their bet about which is crueler, live-long imprisonment or capital punishment, the banker and the lawyer wager their futures.
The lawyer told with the arrogance of youth that he can live for 15 years in solitary confinement. The lawyer was allowed to have anything in his confinement except The Human Companionship. He was given books and piano. He was allowed to write letters.
In "The Bet", why, after reading over six-hundred volumes in four years would the lawyer spend one year reading the New Testament? He first learned different languages so that he could better understand the New Testament instead of just jumping to that right away.
He decides to kill the lawyer but then he discovers a letter from the lawyer. The letter explains that money and materials are worthless and the only thing that matters is death. He is so disgusted by possessions that he writes that he doesn't want the money. (
After reading the letter, the banker feels “contempt for himself,” presumably because he is guilty of just what the prisoner is writing about: believing in the lies mankind has lived by. He locks up the letter so that he will have proof that the prisoner has lost the bet.
1 Expert Answer The lawyer states that the life sentence would be preferable, but the banker calls his bluff, saying that he couldn't stand five years in prison. The decision by the lawyer to raise the stakes is meant to prove his point that a life sentence would be preferable to a death sentence.
How does the lawyer behaviour change from year to year during imprisonment ? Solution : The lawyer in the story does indeed change over the course of his 15 years in "prison." When readers are first introduced to him, he is full of confidence in his own abilities and in his thoughts about capital punishment.
The main moral of the “The Bet” concerns the shallowness of material wealth, as one who is internally rich is not wishing for anything. A secondary theme is about the death penalty. Life imprisonment is portrayed as the better option to death, as the person has the time to develop character.
Debates on the epistemological, ethical, and historical constitution of the anthropological corpus are one of the reasons why anthropology has always thrived.
This collection was sparked in part by a self-styled “rant” on Hau ’s Facebook page (August 31, 2017) by Marshall Sahlins subtitled “Where have all the cultures gone?” in which he lamented not that graduate students were no longer reading the classics, but that they were no longer trained in catalogue knowledge of specific cultural practices: pig feasts, cross-cousin marriage, cannibalism, potlatches, and so on.
In his contribution to the debate over Sahlins’ rant, Ghassan Hage ( 2017) suggests that we should only engage in enabling critiques of anthropology that are guided by respect and “ illusio ” for the discipline. Some have taken him to task for his call to respect elders, but what concerns me more is his insistence on preserving illusions.
1. It is worth restating that within this view of anthropology there was little place for the Caribbean; as a site without “pure products” or distinctively non-Western traditions, the Caribbean lacked the kind of “culture” salvage anthropologists were intent on preserving.
Many came to Sahlins’ defense. Hau included reference to his extensive list of politically progressive publications spanning the decades—prompting many of us to reflect on how our progressive politics on paper may not match, or may even contradict, our political praxis.
I took my problem to British social anthropologist Paul Richards, who was in town for the African Studies Association meeting, and had come to Northwestern University (where I currently work). He was visiting to talk about a book he coauthored with Perri 6, which chronicles the work of Mary Douglas (Richards and Perri 6 2017 ).
In the throes of planning for a required course for a cross-field graduate seminar on “The field,” I explained to my archaeologist colleague that I was planning to write an essay about whether we should celebrate “the classics” or “the canon” for ethnographic theory.