The story "The Sculptor's Funeral" contains many examples of Marxist criticism. This story is set in the small town of Sand City, Kansas. Most of the people in .
this town are greedy and materialistic. There are very few people who actually .
understand Harvey Merrick, and nobody else likes him because they can't .
understand him. They considered him to be a failure because he wasn't overtaken .
by the need to have more money or more possessions. Even his mother considered .
him a failure because she didn't understand him. Harvey Merrick's mother was .
one who had been taken by greed in the small town. The way she expressed her .
grief seemed a little insincere and like too much of a performance - especially .
because she then yelled at the maid for something stupid. His father showed .
real grief and I think it was because he, unlike others, understood his son on .
some level. .
Harvey Merrick went to college in the east with Jim Laird who had also intended to avoid coming back home, but Laird did return and was overcome by the .
greediness that he had purposely tried to avoid. Unlike the rest of the .
townspeople, Laird knows that Harvey was more successful than any of them. .
People putting Harvey Merrick down for a while before Jim Laird finally yelled .
at them for being so ignorant and then left before they could come up with a .
retort.
Harvey Merrick's success was seeded in his happiness and contentment with how he chose to live his life. Anybody in the town of Sand City who had found real .
happiness like that was treated like a second-class person. They were the .
people that everyone else talked about because they had the strength to not .
conform. As Jim Laird pointed out, the way that these people were treated often .
led them on a path of self-destruction, and the same thing would have happened .
to Harvey Merrick if he had come back to Sand City.
I don't believe that Harvey Merrick was very wealthy because most .