Poquette has a bachelor's degree in English and specializes in writing about literature. In the following essay, Poquette discusses Allende's use of a seven deadly sins motif in the modern fable in Allende's story.

Allende goes to great lengths to paint Vargas as a despicable character and to do so, she relies on a very old idea, the seven deadly sins—pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, anger, and sloth. The seven deadly sins were identified by the first Christian monks and were used to great effect in the European Middle Ages. There, they were incorporated into both church sermons and the arts—including the morality play, an allegorical play in which a moral lesson is taught, and where specific characters represent moral qualities. In "The Gold of Tomás Vargas," however, the title character embodies all of the seven deadly sins.

Allende set "The...