The Context of the Dead Mans Pocket

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Angelica Santacruz Can life's events cause us to change our priorities?. After reading "Context of the Dead Man's Pocket", is evident that Tom's priorities change throughout the story. Tom was working on a yellow sheet of paper that had notes and important information that would lead him to obtain a promotion at work. For months, he was working extremely hard which made him just not have any time for his wife or even have lunch. In the beginning of the story the author states that he has a "guilty conscience", he feels guilty that he rather work than spend time with his wife. Tom values success and money more than he values his wife. On page 6 Tom is facing an internal conflict, his wife is going to the movies and he wanted to go with her but his mind is telling him the opposite because he also wants to stay working. "He was tempted to go with her, it was not actually true that he had to work tonight, though he very much wanted to" (page 6). When Tom opened up the window to get some fresh air coming into the room, the yellow sheet of paper flew out of the window. This yellow sheet was very important to Tom because his promotion depended on it. Tom's ambition was to try to get the paper back. He struggled to open the window because he was weak and once he put all that effort and finally opened the window the very important yellow sheet that he works so hard on flew out. Tom thinks it's easy to get the paper back. He pictures himself sliding along the ledge, simply grabbing the paper and coming back inside in less than two minutes. He ended up doing it with no hesitation, the setting created a lot of suspense because Tom was on a ledge of the 11th floor of a very tall building; the ledge was only as wide as his shoe and the space was small too. As it says "His chest, stomach, and face were

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