Greed

The story details the consequences of greed in many ways. In the beginning, Vargas's family has been suffering from his greedy refusal to dig up his gold. As a result, Vargas's "children went hungry and his wife wore rags." Vargas even refuses "to pay the fees for his children's schooling," and when his illegitimate child from Concha is born, he pretends that he is "drunker than usual, to keep from digging up his gold." In the end, however, it is Vargas who pays the ultimate consequence for his greed—with his life. After he gets hooked on gambling, "with the hope of getting rich at one lucky stroke," Vargas makes larger and larger bets. When he makes his largest bet to the Lieutenant, he lets everybody know that if he loses, "I will pay with my buried gold." Although he is completely distraught after he loses the...