The Bottle Imp by Robert Louis Stevenson

A Faustian folktale transplanted to the Pacific, The Bottle. 2 points (c) Would you buy the bottle if it were offered to you for $1 000? If your answer is not consistent with the backward induction analysis, explain your reasoning. Robert Louis Stevenson considered his supernatural short story The Bottle Imp one of his best. 2 points (b) Analyze the game using backward induction. (a) Assuming that the smallest possible unit of currency is a cent and that prices cannot be negative, propose a game that represents the sale of the bottle to successive owners. If an owner of the bottle dies without having sold it in the prescribed manner, that person's soul will burn for eternity in hell. All of these rules must be explained by each seller to each purchaser. for less than its owner originally paid, and cannot be thrown or given away, or else it will magically return to him. The bottle must be sold, for cash, at a loss, i.e.

However, the bottle is cursed if the holder dies bearing it, his or her soul is forfeit to hell. The imp is capable of granting any wish, but the cost of owning such a powerful object is very high, as Keawe finds, to his cost. In this story, a Hawaiian man called Keawe purchases a bottle in which resides a tiny imp. In it, the protagonist buys a bottle with an imp inside that grants wishes. This story focuses on a well-known theme: the danger of making a pact with the Devil. It was first published in the New York Herald (February-March 1891) and Black and White London (March-April 1891). According to Wikipedia, 'The Bottle Imp' is an 1891 short story by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson usually found in the short story collection Island Nights' Entertain- ments.

The Bottle Imp by Robert Louis Stevenson