The Bet Themes

The final twist in "The Bet" hinges on the idea that the lawyer took all the knowledge he could get from the many, many books he read in the prison, and turned it into wisdom. In other words, he cl...

"The Bet" tests the convictions of a lawyer who claims that any kind of life is better than no life at all by subjecting him to fifteen years of subhuman existence, trapped in a house with nothing...

As soon as one of the party people argues that a government that can't restore human life shouldn't have the right to take it away, well, we know that the theme of sacrifice is going to be importan...

"The Bet" might not actually have anything to say about the death penalty, but it can certainly be read as an experiment in solitary confinement. Sure, most prisoners are fairly deprived, but how c...

By setting the action up as a bet, this story necessarily ends up being a contest between the two men involved. The one-upmanship is the reason for the bet, the reason for the raised confinement le...