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Character Interactions In The Palace Thief By Canin

Decent Essays

People interact with each other on a day to day basis, often times revealing more about who they are about a person and what they believe to be right and wrong. The author of “The Palace Thief”, Canin, strategically uses character interactions to evolve a central idea. Morals are a debatable subject because not everyone has a moral code and not everyone follows their moral code as closely as they think they do. The environment in which people grow up and live in for a long period of time affects how strictly they follow their morals, if some people grow up never following their morals, in the future they also aren’t going to follow their morals. Canin utilizes character interactions to support the overall central idea that whether or not we have a moral code, it is set early on in life. People who don’t follow a moral code don’t really show much care for other people and don’t think twice about doing the wrong thing. The interactions Sedgewick has with Hundert demonstrate that Sedgewick has no morals, which also supports the central idea. Based off what Hundert describes about the interactions between the two, it appears that Sedgewick either didn’t recognize he was doing the wrong thing or didn’t care that it was the morally wrong thing. Upon getting caught, Sedgewick states quite snarkily, “I knew you saw,” and the way he says it, along with the context of the statement, makes it seem like he shows no regret, and wouldn't think twice about doing it again. (Canin, pg. 171, para. 4). After Hundert had caught sight of Sedgewick’s puerile behavior and thinks back on it he believed that because of the student’s depravity he already known “what an act of corruption,” he had committed, and that was “especially chilling” to Hundert because of his rigid code of morals. (Canin, pg. 172, para. 1). The interactions between the two characters provide aid to the localized central idea because the way that Sedgewick behaves and speaks to Hundert exhibit the qualities of a person without morals. People who don’t know, or more often, don’t care whether what they are doing is wrong don’t have a moral code which they follow on a day to day basis. Characters who have a moral code but don’t follow it with strict precision

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