You Can't Take It With You: Whalen

Some people will go to unbelievable lengths to get more for themselves. Greed will consume a person without their knowing. It blinds people from the fact that when your dying day comes you will not be judged by how many material possessions you have, but rather the things you have done and the people you have touched while living on this earth. Greed easily blinds people from seeing what is truly important throughout life and death. The Pardoner’s Tale represents just how far people will go to accumulate more for themselves and this picture also represents that through multiple examples. To begin, the man in the painting looks as if he’s fascinated with the golden object he is holding. This is very ironic because in The Pardoner’s Tale, the three men find gold under an oak tree, while searching for death, and are so obsessed with getting it all to themselves they literally die for it. The next similarity is the dark and mysterious undertone this picture displays, with gold being the brightness in the picture. The Pardoner’s Tale also presents a mystery as to why people let greed capture their mind into thinking that it’s worth killing someone to get more for themselves. This leads to the last way this picture portrays the theme of The Pardoner’s Tale. The man in the picture is holding a weapon that can be used to put people to death, a sword. In The Pardoner’s Tale, the three men plotted against one another to get more for themselves. They went so far to plan to kill one another. In the end this resulted as a poor choice for all of them. This is because they did not end up with the riches they had sacrificed their friends for, instead they met death. The lengths people will go to get more for themselves is unbelievable. If people are not careful greed is able to consume them entirely without their knowing. Greed will easily blind you from what is important when your dying day comes. It's not about the quantity or how extravagant your possessions are. It's about the people you have helped and the things you have accomplished that have changed the world in a positive way.

Freedman, Joanne. Saint Alcuin. 1972. Oil on panel. National Gallery of Art. Web. 11 February, 2014.