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Walter Van Tilburg Clark's The Portable Phonograph

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Walter Van Tilburg Clark’s “The Portable Phonograph” analyses how easily peace can be disrupted by greed. In the blink of an eye, peace can turn into destruction, war and chaos. It can all change because of one person's resistance to share with others. Everyone is greedy in some way, but some are more than others. It is in our blood to be greedy, we are wired to try to be better than one another and it is hard to resist. Greed can lead to bad things and a couple of them showed up in the short story. The doctor was greedy because he wanted to keep the phonograph to himself. He did share a song with them, but it was obvious that he did not want to. The doctor’s greed caused the musician’s life to perish. Since the doctor was selfish it lead to the musician wanting to steal the phonograph from him which basically ended with the doctor ready with a lead pipe to protect the phonograph. Like in the story two men’s greed lead to one man's death, and ruined the peace. A musician had come to listen to the phonograph, as he listened it was like everything was ok and peaceful, and it was like there was no war going on. Once the musician came to …show more content…

The time is set in a middle of a war where there are tank tracks frozen in the mud, and meteor looking holes in the ground caused by bombs. Greed wasThe story is based around a theme of what greed can cause, and this is one thing. People cause war because they want more for themselves (more territory) or they can do it to prove that they are better/right. The war’s energy is greed, take away that greed and there is no war, no deaths and no destruction. In Conclusion, Walter Van Tilburg Clark’s “The Portable Phonograph” is a great example of how greed can change things in an instant. The greed of the doctor and the musician lead to death and the greed of civilizations lead to thousands of

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