Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Is Richard a "bad boy?"

Personally I don't think that Richard is a bad boy, but rather he becomes a bad boy because of his environment. I do think that its not his fault that he does the majority of the bad things he does like when he goes and drinks at the saloon (21). However, some of the things that Richard does shouldn't be blamed on his environment like when he kills the kitten (11). I think that once he commits an act so bad as to kill someone or something innocent he has crossed the line from a bad environment to being a "bad boy." With the exception of this act, I truley think that it's the environments fault.

4 comments:

Zach Frey said...

Wow you did a really good job on this blog!! I agree with the part about the bar and how its not his fault. The one thing that i believe that is different then you is that I think that even him killing the cat is still the environments fault. The pressure that his father placed on him was too great so he snapped and did something crazy.

Teddy H. said...

Great points, but I agree with Zach. The fact that he has such incredible pressure to obay his father leads him to "crack," and go too far with punishing him. But, in a family where punishment = violence, how is Richard supposed to figure out when he's gone too far?

Nora said...

I really like what you had to say, and teddy has a good point too! To answer your question, I don't know. In fact I believe that the violence is what makes Richard lash out and start fights with the white boys and the kids at his new school.
As for the kitten part I don't think Richard should take all the blame, after all the father did tell him to kill it. Even though he didn't actually mean it, he should have never said that in the first place. However Richard should have know better though, killing an innocent kitten is always wrong.

Peter said...

After reading a few of peoples' responses, the general conclusion seems to be that you cannot blame most of the terrible actions on Richard and his conscience. I agree with you as well. The saloon incident(s) is a great example because Richard is not under any adult supervision and also had no control over what the other adults did to him. His lack of experience in the outside world leaves him with a lack of street vocabulary...good response kyle

p. rothmeier