What Does It Mean To Be Hounded By Greed?

“Angry? Yes, I’m angry; I’d be a lousy lawyer if I weren’t. I suppose it’s like I’ve got a permanent boil on my butt and can’t quite sit down. Which is not the same, you understand, as being hounded by greed; although I can see, of course, that is probably sometimes looked like greed to certain individuals who were not lawyers, when they saw a person like me driving all the way up there to the Canadian border, practically, way me camping out in the middle of winter in a windy dingy little motel room for weeks at a time, bugging the hell out of decent people who were in the depths of despair and just wanted to e left alone. I can understand that.” (Banks 89)

Russell Banks does a sensational job demonstrating how different people deal with
Some of this is to be true, but greed is not what drives Stephens to these cases. “People immediately assume we’re greedy, that it’s money we’re after, People call is ambulance-chasers and so on…. But it wasn’t greed that put me there; it’s never been greed…. it’s anger.”(Banks 89-90) There is a different side of this powerful worded influential lawyer. Inside is a man that is empty, nothing but a deep painful sadness. Stephens lives life telling himself that he is flying in to save the day. Getting these poor soles the money they deserve due to pain and losses. He is sick with the desire to fill a void that can’t be filled. Stephens can relate to the other families in this story, due to also losing a child. Although Stephens, daughter, Zoe, is not dead, Stephens has lost Zoe to drug addiction. “Zoe is not literally dead. At least not that I know of. Not yet.” (Banks 100) He blames himself because he knows he is enabling Zoe by sending her funds every time she asked for it. With whatever story Zoe feeds him, Stephens knows what she is doing with the money, “ I send the money, hundreds thousands of dollars and she’s gone again.” (Banks 101) However, he cannot say no. Stephens fears more of what would happen to Zoe if he did not send her the money. “ I realize that if I don’t send money, she’ll raise it some other way, dealing drugs or pornography or even hooking.” (Banks 101) What
Stephens does not seem clear as to what he is suffering from, but categorizes this problem as a particular kind of passion. “Simply, I do it because I’m pissed off, and that’s what you get when you mix conviction with rage. It’s a very special kind of anger, let’s say. So I’m no victim. Victims get depressed and live in the there and then. I live in the here and now.” (Banks 99) Rather than getting help and support to deal with the PTSD, Stephens uses anger to motivate and taking cases like this one. Stephens is suffering PTSD is due to the pain of watching Zoe slowly kill herself, and now he is stuck in a cycle of anger and defeatism. Anger can be insidious, and it motivates. Stephens's anger is also passing psychic pain onto others, making others also pay for his emotional deficits, and Stephens is very aware of this. “It’s anger that drives us and delivers” (Banks 90) He believes through taking on cases like this one, he is focusing his anger in a productive way even though he knows he is no hero. However, it is now the anger and empty feeling of failure that controls Stephens.“ So I am no Lone Ranger riding into town in my white Mercedes-Benz to save the local sheepherders from the cattle barons in black hats. I am clear on that. And I do not burn myself out with these awful cases because it somehow makes me a better person. No, I admit it, I’m, on a personal vendetta; what the hell, it is obvious. And I