Shocking Simplicity; Depressing Results

“Everyone who knew about such things, the expert, agreed that only money gets money. The best way is always the simplest. The shocking simplicity of the thing was its greatest strength. But I really believe it was only a detailed daydream until Marullo through none of his fault walked in his own darkness over a cliff. Once it seemed almost certain that I could get the store for my own, only then did the high-flown dreaming come down to earth”(217).

Money is the root of all evil in Winter of Our Discontent. Ethan tries to get money through out the book but this only leads to him compromising his morals, and in the end he his plans all fail on him. Here he reflects on what he had done and how everything was going. He notes that at one point he thought he would be able to get the store. This dream was close to becoming real but in the end it backfired on him, and it collapsed. It’s a clear showing of his reflective ness and how he likes to think back on the past. The diction of a detailed daydream notes the dream like quality of everything that happened to him. Everything was so unreal, and it all happened so fast, that it’s hard to believe what actually happened.

The tone is thoughtful though in a sad and regretful way. He considers all that had gone wrong and wonders what could have been the cause of it all happening. He theorizes that it was “the shocking simplicity”(217) that was the problem and that his plan was too complex to work. He believes that if he could have made it simpler that he might have succeeded, but he tried for too much and ended up falling flat. This idea is adds to the regret and the sadness of the quote. At some point he thought he'd be able to succeed and was happy for it. He compromised his morals to obtain the success and now that it had failed, he was sad and he regretted trying. The poor man had no real comfort left from success.