A Matter of Honor: A Review(2)
Personally, the narrator did not get the money in an honorable way because he did need money at that time[6], and he had every reason to hide the key information, i.e. he did not own the dog, to General Miles. And there’s no doubt that the narrator was a hypocrite. Firstly, when he saw the dog-owner looking around and asked if he need help, it was not out of conscience, but out of money: money that is “honorable”, or “of less guilty”, because he thought he deserved it[7]. Additionally, he claimed that the deal was of General Miles’ will despite his shortage of cash[8], and the disagreement between the narrator’s conduct and words was a reflection of his hypocrisy. Anyway, the narrator “went away feeling quite satisfied[9]” at last.
This interesting short story satirizes the materialism and hypocrisy of American society. The narrator played a textbook trick of “fishing with no bait”, which, I suppose, was not uncommon in the Gilded Age--an era of rapid economic growth, also an era of abject poverty and inequality, and I believe not a few people made their first pot of gold, not just three dollars, but hundreds of thousands of dollars, by tricks. Nevertheless, this kind of miSconduct was viewed as “a matter of honor” at that time, which reminds me of The Great Gatsby, a masterpiece written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in the same era, in which the protagonist grabbed a great fortune by bootlegging. Money is might; who cares how you get them, and I am sure the same can be found is true now—speculators win with less effort; as to the honored toilers, “so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
This interesting short story satirizes the materialism and hypocrisy of American society. The narrator played a textbook trick of “fishing with no bait”, which, I suppose, was not uncommon in the Gilded Age--an era of rapid economic growth, also an era of abject poverty and inequality, and I believe not a few people made their first pot of gold, not just three dollars, but hundreds of thousands of dollars, by tricks. Nevertheless, this kind of miSconduct was viewed as “a matter of honor” at that time, which reminds me of The Great Gatsby, a masterpiece written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in the same era, in which the protagonist grabbed a great fortune by bootlegging. Money is might; who cares how you get them, and I am sure the same can be found is true now—speculators win with less effort; as to the honored toilers, “so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
雷狮A×你O
