Peer Pressure Through Ages,Recklessness, andImmaturity - Essay Example

The protagonist was leading a dark life that was filled with faults and dangers, but due to some incidents happening in the span of a few hours at the darkest part of the day, the blackness of the character seemed to get washed away in the very river where the narrator hid with the floating corpse and came out with an awakened soul.

Peer Pressure Through Ages

The passage tells us in a big way about the heightened effect of peer pressure that has affected humanity for ages. It seems that like a weak-limbed youth, the narrator has surrendered to peer- pressure and does all the things that his group is doing. He does not wait to see whether his action is right or wrong. He wants to be a part of the select crowd and does everything that his mates are currently indulging in. This could be smoking, drinking, roaming around all night, using abusive words, and lots more.

Attraction towards Darker Elements of Life

The narrator is naturally impressed with the darker elements of life. He feels proud in calling himself bad and to appear as rude as possible. He thinks it to be cool to be associated with so-called bad and dangerous people. He purposefully indulges in all the negativities of life not only because of so-called peer pressure but also because he has a natural affinity for it.

Recklessness

The narrator indulges in reckless behavior without any thought toward the consequences. This reckless behavior gives him nothing but frustration and he seems forever waiting for something to happen and restless in his life.

Immaturity

The narrator has a high level of immaturity in his character. He never thinks before he leaps and thus finds himself in troubled water (literally). The narrator along with his friends confronts another individual on mistaken identity and suffers much loss (both economically and physically) in the encounter. The ending could have been worse had the crimes been committed, but luckily the other individual was a tougher person (to have sustained the blow) and he saved two crimes from happening (murder and rape in that order). This would certainly have pushed all three friends into a darker world of crime with all hopes of the future dead.

Lust

Lust is present in all individuals and it is usually covered with a layer of civility. But, in the case of the narrator and his friends, the lust overtook all their self-control and they were even ready to force themselves on an unwilling victim. The narrator was very near to committing the hideous crime of rape and only fate intervened to save him from this felony. Hence, this shows the debasement of the narrator’s morals.

Cowardice

The narrator is a coward behind all the bravado that he presents to the world. He is afraid of stronger individuals and can only confront them in the crowd. He is afraid of his parents, his mother’s censor, the police department, the corpse, and society at large. Hence, we find that the narrator is weak both in body and spirit and this weakness is typical of the pretentious youth.

Hidden Consciousness

However, some of the weakness present in the narrator also confirms that there is a consciousness (however dormant) lying inside him. The narrator is aware of his faults and knows how near he had come to losing his control (and his entire life along with it) in the darkness of the night. Hence, he rejoices when he comes to know that the person whom he had hit was alive, even though he was wreaking havoc with his mother’s precious car.

The Hope of Evolution into a New Being

Eventually, we see that the narrator along with his friends is shamefaced and understands the mistakes that he has committed. We find him refusing the drug along with the company that the older girl had offered him. This refusal seems to be of high significance and we can only hope that it was the very first refusal to the entire negative elements of life. The refusal shows that life has given a new opportunity to him and he would do everything to grasp this opportunity and lead his life from a fresher perspective.