Poetry and Social Change: The Villages of Goldsmith and Crabbe

It appears that ambition and greed have something very fundamental in common . Though the two emotions differ in honor , they share so much that with a little imagination one might find them indistinguishable . Have I been on that ladder grasping each rung and chasing the ladder into eternity ? Perhaps . I have asked for more and more through different stages of my life , paralleling the greedy wife 's requests in the story . Ambition drives most people want to climb higher and higher , as represented by their climbing out of the earth and into

the sky to reach the moon . The moon symbolizes different things to each person . For some it represents a career , a lifestyle , a family . For others it represents simply the idea of more ' Is it here that the difference between ambition and greed lies

For me , the moon represents my goal to have a very successful career For the wife in the story , the moon represents her infinite desire People always try to achieve a better life : a job with a higher salary and maybe a brighter future but in this desperation , we sometimes forget to measure our abilities , slow down , and make every step count Without building the academic foundation , all my goals will be hard to reach and all those thoughts I dreams will remain unrealized - perhaps like the fisherman 's wife who , without even contributing to saving the golden fish 's life , displays an overwhelming desire for more that results in her ending up with nothing . The lack of a concrete desire - an end to the infinite succession of rungs - is perhaps another dimension of what defines greed . Greed has no goal it looks ever forward and does is oblivious to the worth of each rung

Having goals gives people the incentive to climb as...