Debt and sin analysis

She uses debt as a metaphor of sin and explores the negative aspects of it. The society of human beings works as a system of exchange: almost nothing comes for free, students need to spend hours in the library to get education, adults work endlessly to get money. However, where exchange exists, a risk must be involved. That is a risk in regards to the trade being unequal, that one of the participants will get a smaller share of goods and excessive share of resentment. In addition, there is an additional "worrisome and puzzling" risk of debt when the idea of loans and repayments are considered. “but they offer the forty-eight cents and two of the chocolates- fluttering their eyelashes, said my aunt- and their offer was accepted. Thus they slept in comfort,” (53).

As such, the issue becomes not whether being in debt is good or bad, but when is good and when is it considered bad? To be able to address this issue from Margaret Atwood's point of view, it is important, to begin with examining how she assumes some kind of debt through the way she develops her essay; "Debt and Sin". Throughout this chapter, she takes her readers back in time to briefly dwell among ancient Egypt's goddesses, early classical Greece's courts and also the literary works from Dickens, Shakespeare among others. she does not refer to any tangible currency through her thoughts and process of writing, rather, she brings out a debt of an intellectual kind, a loan that is in the form of borrowed prose, theories, and ideas. Then she makes references to riddles, "come to me neither naked nor clothed, neither on the road, neither off it…" (50).

She also references the code of Hammurabi of Mesopotamia, through which the reader learns that “ a man in debt could pawn his wife and kids…” (56). She does not end there because she again quotes Patrick Tierney in his book The Highest Altar: The Story of Human Sacrifice discussion the dominating traditions among the shamans or Yataris found at the Titicaca Lake region in South America (72). It is only through these "loans" she acquires from other sources that Atwood is able to develop a lucid and detailed picture of the connection between sin and debt to her audience. She, therefore, settles her intellectual debt using her own intellectual progress and movement, that is the intelligent transformation of ancient notions, into the ones that have been reimagined and made new. She brings in God and the unethical side of sin.

To her, debt is a metaphor for sin. And just like sin is punishable, in fact, the wages of sin is death, so is debt. When people are angry at each other, fights occur very often. Not many will be hit and not hit back, the need for revenge leads to serious fights that eventually end in bloodsheds. The "Original Sin, "which has been added to through your own probably not very original sins- can never be repaid by you, because the sum total is too large. So unless someone steps forward on your behalf, your soul will become (a) extinct or (b) a slave of the devil in hell, to be disposed of in some unpleasant way," (68). So yes, despite the many negative effects debts may have on the debtors, it is somewhat inevitable.

Throughout the essay, Atwood remains perfectly at ease and persuasively consequently, in the domains of showbiz, mythology, natural history, literature both high and low and politics too. When things seem to be getting over-academics, she changes her strategy and brings in a personal anecdote, or some humor or at times both. Print. “Debt and sin.