Selfishness In The Landlady And The Umbrella Man

Happiness doesn't come through selfishness, but through selfishness everything you do comes back around. In our world today, many people show selfishness. In literature many characters portray selfishness and show throughout stories how selfish people can be in real life. Authors make the characters showing selfishness so the reader can relate. In both “The Landlady” and “The Umbrella Man,” both of the characters show the relation between characters and humans in real life. They both show the characters putting themselves before others and thinking that they are better than everyone, which is a very common human trait. The theme that “The Landlady” and “The Umbrella Man” both share is selfishness. The characters show selfishness through the …show more content…
The mother also found with being selfish she could get what she wanted.She wouldn’t even trust the old man, from first sight he looked like a solid guy. She refused to give him 1 pound just for a cab fare. He then had to give her an umbrella worth “over 20 pounds” and she would hardly give him a cab fare. She needed to get the feeling that she was still better than this old man. She wouldn’t be a civil nice person she needed to feel like she was higher than him and get the better end of the deal.Now at this time she didn’t know he was going to use the money for something else but she wouldn’t even just do him a small favor. She did end up giving him the fare but still took the expensive silk umbrella which was not a fair “trade” at all. The lady wouldn’t even give this poor looking guy a cab fare, she needed something in return which was very selfish. The main character, the umbrella man was also very selfish too. He was a con artist, he went to nice, helpless people and tried to exchange a stolen umbrella for money to buy drinks. He took advantage of the people and their money to buy himself alcohol and feed his addiction. He was selfish by thinking of himself and using the money of the family on himself. Overall the umbrella man and the mother both showed selfishness for their own …show more content…
In both stories chronological order is important because it helps one get a feeling for the characters. Over time the events happen in order at an exact time to let the reader know the characters better. In “The Landlady” and “The Umbrella Man,” chronological order helps reveal the theme because the order of the events help the reader know over time the true identity of the main characters. In “The Landlady,” the events happen in an order so that the landlady to get away with poisoning and murdering Billy. Without the events in order then the actions of the landlady would have been different. In “The Umbrella Man,” without the events in order the reader wouldn’t be able to tell the selfishness of the umbrella man and the mother. In the beginning of “The Landlady,” she appeared to Billy as a nice, sweet lady. But as the story went along the reader can realised that she really is a psycho lady. Her actions speak very loudly this story in describing her. In the beginning she was very welcoming and knew exactly what Billy needed to hear in order to gain her trust. As the story progressed her actions showed her true self. “She seemed terribly nice,” Billy Weaver thought around halfway through the story when he had gotten to know the landlady a little bit more. Going more into the story Billy realises the true character that the landlady is. The landlady’s actions throughout the story help one not only