Cruelty is a vice of many motives. A cruel act is one that inflicts pain, suffering, and difficulty on others. Some of the motives that create cruelty are explored in the novels The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Ender’s Game, and The Catcher in the Rye. Although the characters are in these novels are in different situations, they each experience cruelty in a variety of forms. People use to cruelty to express their fear of change, manipulate others to go beyond their limits, and create new images.
People are cruel because they are afraid of change. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a novel that follows Junior, a 14-year-old boy living on the Spokane Indian Reservation. Determined to receive a better education, Junior makes the bold decision to leave the reservation school and attend Reardon, a school full of white kids in a town neighboring the reservation. Many members of the community do not understand Junior’s decision and are angered by it. When Junior goes trick-or-treating on Halloween night, he experiences
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The Catcher in the Rye is the narrative of a teenage boy named Holden Caulfield, and his recollection of the events that lead up to his mental decline. Throughout the novel, Holden focuses on the “phoniness” of the people around him. In one example, Holden recalls a mishap that occurs with his roommate at Elkton Hills, one ofthe many boarding schools he has attended. His roommate, Dick Sagle, feels insecure that he is not able to afford the nice things that Holden has, such as his suitcases. His insecurity about the issue causes him to act begrudging and resentful towards Holden. “He was always saying snotty things about them, my suitcases, for instance. He kept saying they were too new and bourgeois… Everything I had was bourgeois as hell. Even my fountain pen was bourgeois. He borrowed it off me all the time, but it was bourgeois anyway” (Salinger, ch.