While reading chapter 8, I came across a situation described in one of Kilgore Trout's scientific fiction books. His novel describes a tree of a very unusual nature.
"It had twenty-dollar bills for leaves. Its flowers were government bonds. Its fruit was diamonds. It attracted human beings who killed each other around the roots and made very good fertilizer. So it goes" (167).
Not only is this tree a dream for every man and woman thirsty for wealth, its value is extremely dangerous. I can only imagine the horrible events that would take place if a tree of this kind existed on Earth. Billy describes the gruesome scene taking place at the base of the tree; materialistic humans fighting each other to the death for nothing but money. The blood and decomposed bodies of greedy people is absorbed gratefully by the tree's roots. I was intrigued by the idea of human gluttony directly benefiting the Earth. The fictional money tree actually thrives on the violence of humans.
Did Vonnegut intentionally give us the hint that the bad habits of humans will somehow have positive consequences? Is this theme present in any other places in nature?
It's interesting to imagine a tree like that actually existing. When I had read it, I thought this was a great example of how the value of money relies on the value we give it. If nobody cared about the money on the tree, the tree could no longer feed off of the people and the tree would die. But because people give it value and they fight over it, the tree continues to grow
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of each side helping the other, it's a very interesting concept. It's true that money only has the value that we give it, and if humans ceased to pay attention to money, it would become completely insignificant.
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