BB 1st Blog Assignment

Question: Is Richard a "bad" boy? When should behavior be blamed on the person and when should it be blamed on the environment?

I believe that Richard is a bit of both. He is influence a lot by his environment because he grew up in a bad part of town. Also he was influenced by his family and his family's way of life. For instance, his parents form of punishment is usually whipping. Where as in this day and age that would be greatly frowned upon. This way of life causes Richard to do things that he doesn't necessarily think before he does it. For instance he becomes an alcoholic at the age of six because people in his town would serve him free alcohol. Also at one point he runs home and takes a bar of soap and starts running around town writing words on windows. One of the townspeople tells his mother and her first instinct is to make him clean all the windows then she whips him. It shows up later in the novel that Richard does things without really realizing what he has done.

On the other hand there is such thing as free will, Richard was not forced to do all these things. He could have just told his family about the new words he learned. He could also have not gone to the saloon everyday to drink alcohol. Also when Richards father tells him to get rid of a kitten he finds, he takes the literal meaning of what his father had said and killed the kitten by making a noose and hanging the kitten. In this case he could have shushed the cat of even sent him away. But instead he killed it, just to try to spite his father. Richard is a bad boy because even though his environment greatly influences him, he can still make his own choices on many occasions, to make his life better.

Welcome!!!!

Welcome to my blog everybody. I remember doing a blog thing last year at Southview and it wasn't that bad. I'm sure that this one will be a bit better because there are new people with different opinions that I will be happy to clash with. Feel free to post here and make it the best blog of all. And if you post here I'll at least try to post on your blogs.

Happy blogging....