Property Ownership in Forster’s and van Dyke’s Essays

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Table of Contents

My Wood
Who Owns the Mountains?
Discussion

My Wood

Forster is oddly delighted and dejected by his newly bought ‘wood’. He takes his ‘wood’ as a dishonor upon his standards, besides, the property is a burden and a source of shame. However, he is slightly satisfied with new possession, as this is the first private land he has ever owned. Forster attempts to elucidate the physiological consequences of property on the owner.

Property ownership has four negative effects: it makes the owner greedy; it makes the person want more and more until he can achieve the impossible; the owner becomes arrogant, and he becomes self-centered.

Who Owns the Mountains?

Van Dyke mainly deals with true ownership of property in this essay. He addresses the issue of property ownership by referring to the Mountains, which he describes with so much passion that according to his explanation of property ownership, they belong to him. He views property ownership from a religious point of view, likening true ownership of the property to God’s ownership of earth: He has given away all his Creations and does not possess any title deeds. His only possession is the perfect understanding, joy, and love for all He made, and this is an ideal example of true ownership.

Discussion

The thesis for My Wood is ‘property ownership can cause spiritual poverty’, while that for Who Owns the Mountains becomes ‘true ownership of a property is not bestowed unto the owner’.

The two theses resemble each other as they both touch on property ownership. However, they differ in the journey towards acquiring property and the effects on the owner.

Van Dyke asserts that an item is truly owned if the owner can take it to his inner life by understanding it, showing appreciation, compassion, and adoration. He dismisses the notion that simply paying up for property makes one the owner, he goes on to write that the one person who tends to the purchased items with passion is the true owner. He gives examples of Pomposus Silverman and Honorable Midas Bond as examples of people who purchased expensive and rare treasures, but they are not the true owners of such items. They belong to those who hold them, dear, in this case, the art students and Bücherfreund, Silverman’s employee, respectively. Possession of wealth can make one miss out on the real wealth of spiritual fulfillment.

Forster also goes further than just ownership of the property; he informs us of the negative traits associated with owning property and the effects of an endeavor to own a lot of property. As the thesis states, the quest to own property can make one be selfish and separate himself from the world thinking he has all he needs. He exemplifies Ahab, who did not need the vines but planted them around his property to keep off intruders.

Besides selfishness, property ownership gives one a restless mind that originates from the desire to compensate for the inability to enjoy the property owned. Thus, instead of fulfillment to the owner, the property owned causes a void in the heart of the owner as he becomes lonely and ponders over his inability to be happy with so much at his disposal. Owning property fills the owner with greed as he keeps wanting more and is never satisfied with what he already has.

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Property Ownership in Forster’s and van Dyke’s Essays

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