Greed

Greed, unfortunately, is one of the most enduring of all human motives and has therefore been an important theme in many significant works of literature. The desire to possess more than one needs, often at the expense of others, has been a topic in literary works from the most ancient to the most contemporary. Gilgamesh, for example – perhaps the oldest of all surviving works of literature – takes greed as a major issue, but so do such later works as The Odyssey, numerous classical tragedies, The Divine Comedy, various works by Chaucer and Shakespeare, and more recent writings by a wide variety of English and American authors, such as Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, Dashiell Hammett, Arthur Miller, Tom Wolfe, and many others. This volume explores the ways greed has been used in literature, not only as a theme but also as a focus of characterization. The volume examines the ways greed has appeared as a concern in literature from many different times and cultures.