Getting Paid for What One Does - Essay Example

The stories in this reading provide educative themes that are based on getting paid for what one does. In the first story “Farewell, My Lovely Appetizer”, S.J. Perelman narrates about a bad woman called Sigrid Bjornsterne who had attempted to poison his husband in order to claim his life insurance policy. Sigrid had encouraged her husband to take an insurance policy which would attract a triple compensation if he died of seafood. Poisoning her husband with seafood would earn her a lot of money.

When she was discovered, she went to a private investigator called Mike to help her. The private op realized her trick and handed her to authorities for action against her. From this story, I learned that there is no evil that goes unpaid. He who kills by the sword will surely be killed by the sword. The story was told in the first person whereby the narrator was the main character. This allowed him to explain things clearly and pass his information clearly for the audience to understand and avoid doing bad things to others.

Johnson used the same mechanisms that Shaw used on Brahms to tarnish his reputation. Geng (1985) used this short story with a relevant title to encourage people to be on good terms with others, and not to rejoice in the failure of others.