Nurture Vs. Nature -- How Term Paper

Strike has ethics, as shown in his behavior towards his 'boss' Roscoe, and his mentoring of the younger, more vulnerable young men. In a different social situation, Strike would likely have put his moral impulses to different and better use. Strike obeys the moral logic of his urban society with the same kind of adherence that an upstanding citizen might, who had been afforded ways to make a decent living in a law-abiding way. But Strike grew up in a neighborhood where the most noble and respectable persons were all drug dealers, and the person one could aspire to be like, at the highest level, was a criminal. Thus, although he does not wish to kill, and seeks an escape from the limits of his existence, because he has no role models around him (and unconsciously provides a bad example to younger members of his neighborhood) Strike becomes a dealer, or a clocker.

These books do not present utterly helpless visions of the human character. All of the protagonists have basic impulses that make them more than pawns -- to become educated, to gain social esteem in the eyes of their peers, and to make something of their lives. But society limits the reach of their aspirations, and the way that others perceive them, as Black, low class, or as destined for nothing but a life of crime, essentially become self-fulfilling prophesies.

Works Cited

Ellison, Ralph. (1995) Invisible Man. New York: Vintage.

Faulkner, William. (1991) Absalom, Absalom. New York: Vintage Reissue.

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