Journal 3

Caitlin Diskin

I think it was very interesting when we watched the episode of “The Twilight Zone” that tied in with the short story “The Bet”. There were many similarities and differences between the show and the story. In the story the bet was fifteen years sitting in a room with no human contact, or talking. In the episode the bet was only five years and he also couldn’t speak. I felt the story was better though because the people were truer to they words. In the episode, the man got his vocal cords cut out so he could not speak. But I feel that is a little extreme because his life is impaired forever. But the man did not have the money to offer to the salesman anyway, so neither were truthful. In the short story though, the man had the money, even though he didn’t want to give it away and it would hurt him financially, he still had it to hold up his side of the bet. But, the man decided to not take the money. He also shared all the lessons he learned throughout his years of silence and reading, The themes were brought out in this story very well. They were greed, never trusting people, and nihilism was also shown throughout there story. Nihilism is the rejection of all religious and moral principles; the belief that life is meaningless. So he thought came to the realization that he didn’t need the money and the need for money was caused by greed.