Lesson Five:Poetry On Gambling

1. The poem, Tom Beatty, and the story, the rocking horse winner are in complete contrast with each other. In the poem, the main gist of the story is to know your limits and leave when you lose instead of staying and hoping to strike it lucky. The poet said that in the opera house, you have seventy years to play and whether the gambler wins or loses is controlled by either the lord or devil. Paul, on the other hand, had much less time than seventy years. After losing two horse races in one row, he did not stop. Rather, the loses fueled his desire to earn money. This caused him to become delirious ultimately resulting in his death. It may be a blessing in disguise however, to die so early. Like Paul's mother said, "My family has been a gambling family, and you won't know till you grow up how much damage it has done." If Paul had not died, he might grow up to become the man who "curse his losses, leaden-eyed,  whining to try and try." It may have been sad that one should die so young because of his parent's greed and desire for a high social status, but at least he had not grown up with this gambling addiction or he would be a big dent to society.

2. Just like the short story, paper, the person in the poem could not give up his gambling, no matter how big his losses are. The stocks in paper are the same, and no matter what we do to try and control or manipulate the stock market, it still remains vulnerable to changes. Unfortunately, when people lose in either the roulette or the stock market, they tend to harbor a "one last time feeling." In other words, they always play one last time in the hope of earning all their money back. Green is a color that can represent this as it shows greed and envy. In comparison, greed causes the gamblers to keep on playing, ultimately losing all their money. 

3. The one-dollar gambler has a relation to Ah Boh in the sense that no matter how much she has, there will always be money to bet or gamble with. She may have zero dollars to spend on food, but even if she is clean broke, she can never forget that that zero dollars will also be used for gambling. She often fails in her bets, as shown in the phrase,"empty hands" but keeps on betting again and again. This shows that the notion of gambling is embedded so deeply in her mind that she can never stop gambling, even if she has zeo dollars.