Alexander Pushkin "The Queen of Spades" Hermann and Greed

Essay by doctormaqUniversity, Bachelor'sF, November 2002

download word file, 2 pages 3.0

Downloaded 61 times

The Queen of Spades: Hermann and Greed

The Queen of Spades is a complicated story about greed, the supernatural, love, desires and secrets. The card game in the story The Queen of Spades is one of the oldest games of chance. What I will try to determine is whether the Countess' seemingly real ghost is authentic only in so much as Hermann's consuming madness produces it, as well as to designate the origin of Hermann's madness.

Hermann is a young German soldier in the Tsar's army who dreams of becoming a member of the Russian elite. After an evening at a friend's, he learns the story of an old countess who is known to hold an invincible secret at playing cards. This Countess resides with her niece, Lisa. Hermann decides to manipulate Lisa and allows her to fall in love with him so that he may be introduced to the Countess. Once introduced, Hermann basically threats the Countess to reveal her secret. Not much time afterwards, the Countess appears in one of Hermann's dream and reveals to him a winning card combination on the one condition that he marry Lisa. After becoming very happy Hermann decides to reject Lisa and use her secret to become rich. But little does he know what is going to happen.

The Countess lays out the conditions that are harmful to Hermann in the end. The Countess tells him that after using the secret he is forbidden to ever use it again. He is given the key to eternal fortune and then told he can only use it once. It is human nature to consume resources until they are depleted of all value and only then to move on. The condition set by the Countess goes against everything that Hermann would want to...