The Bet is a short story about a banker and a lawyer who don't agree on how a prisoner should be executed - through years of imprisonment, or the death penalty. You can read the full story here.
The lawyer thought that the imprisonment was better than the death penalty, and therefore he bet that he could stay in a cell happily for fifteen years. The banker took him up on this deal and said that if the lawyer stayed in solitary confinement for the full time, he would pay the lawyer two million dollars, which to him wasn't much since he was a millionaire.
The lawyer became depressed and deprived of good health during his time, but he learned to cope with it as he studied and learned six languages, and read a vast multitude of books. He learned hard through fifteen long years that he despised the human race. On his last night, he wrote a letter to the banker and left, therefore revoking the bet.
The banker was utterly confused at the letter, as he couldn't understand why the lawyer would back out of two million dollars. The lawyer explained that he didn't like the wisdom the books poured out to him and that humans were
"You have lost your reason and taken the wrong path. You have taken lies for truth, and hideousness for beauty. You would marvel if, owing to strange events of some sorts, frogs and lizards suddenly grew on apple and orange trees instead of fruit, or if roses began to smell like a sweating horse; so I marvel at you who exchange heaven for earth. I don't want to understand you."
What amuses me the most, is the fact that the banker went into the lawyer's cell the last night of the bet to kill him. While the lawyer was suffering through no human contact, the banker was growing more broke each year the passed, as he was worried about having to pay the lawyer. That was where he read the letter. And when he was finished, he kissed the man atop the head, who was sleeping at his table, and the banker left.
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I don't really enjoy political topics, however, everyone has their own opinion, and I need to respect that. But the fact of the matter is that this was an English assignment for school, and my best friend told me that she believes the assignment was to help us kids understand how to think more abstract. In my own, respected opinion towards others, there should be both death penalties and life sentences. For those men and women who have done the unthinkable, their lives should be brought into a courtroom for a jury to decide their fate.
But there are those who should get a second chance at life. To only spend a portion of their lives in prison, and to then be on parole. The thing with people is that they can learn from their mistakes. They can learn right from wrong. And what if they were wrongly accused? Take the consideration that whatever it was someone else did, some other person was thought of doing it. I actually have a cousin who was falsely accused of a crime due to the fact that he looked almost exactly like the culprit, and was in the same area. No, he wasn't charged because he had friends with him who vouched where he was at the time of the crime. But if he was alone, do you really suppose they would have believed him? I don't think so either.
I want to end on a positive note, and I want my readers to know that I mean no disrespect if my opinion is not your own. I am not a bias person, and I stand by with what I say. But know that your opinion is yours as well, and I won't dislike you if you don't agree with me on what I say. It's just the way the world goes round.
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