When we read stories we often generate questions to ask about the story and we often wonder the answers to these questions. In the Andy Mulligan novel Trash, there is one burning question that we often think of throughout this story -
Is it OK to lie, steal or cheat?
Since we are born, we are taught
certain moral lessons by those who love us. Lying, stealing and cheating are
all unacceptable traits to have. Having said that, certain life situations
impose on us the need to lie, to protect ourselves and our family and friends.
I seldom think of those less fortunate in life having to resort to stealing in
order to survive. It is my belief that in each person there is good and bad.
What separates us is this ability to distinguish between right or wrong.
In the story we reviewed last
time, Trash, we discover that some of the main characters lie to other people, mainly
to the police. For example, Raphael (the protagonist of the story) lied to the
police twice (in Chapter 3 of Part One and Chapter 2 of Part Two). In the 1st instance of this situation,
Raphael found a black bag, which contains an ID of a then-unknown Gabriel
Olondriz. He also found 11,000 pesos inside the bag, wrapped with a bill. The
moment he discovered the large amount of money in the bag, he had a choice to
make. He had the choice to either take
the bag and hand it into the police or keep the bag to himself. This is where it becomes evident to us as we
read on, that those “Trash boys” have not lived their childhood and grew up
believing in doing whatever it takes to survive. Their fear
of the police, who were known for their brutality and corruption, took over any
desire to hand in the bag. This supports
my point “sometimes, we lie and steal to survive”. At that very moment, Raphael thought that if
he keeps the money and runs from the police, he can share the money with his
family AND become rich and popular in Behala. But, on the other hand, if he
lied to the police, then he might get in trouble and result in a far more
horrific situation in the future (which he did).
This situation happened again in
Part Two of the story. In Part Two, Raphael is kidnapped by the police and sent
to the station. When the police told Raphael about the missing bag (what the
police were looking for), Raphael was lying, and therefore, getting injured by
the cops. The team also told Raphael about finding a shoe in the dump – he
really didn’t find a shoe like he said in Part One – he was lying! The police
became more furious with every single lie Raphael said and in the end, threatened
to throw him out the window. Thankfully, Raphael survived. But how did he get
through this labyrinth of lying and police madness? Unfortunately, as I
mentioned in my introduction, sometimes our need to lie to protect those we
love and the fear that just takes over us, is much stronger than our own desire
to tell the truth. Fear disables us and
we find ourselves saying whatever is needed to get out of a hard
situation. Poverty is another life
situation that renders us slaves to money.
The boys felt so weak at the sight of all that money, they knew that
that money would give them some comfort and would provide them with a better
life, good food and security, all of which the boys never experienced
before.
So, in conclusion, yes…
sometimes in our fight to live we do steal and we do lie.
1 comment:
Joey, you have made some very strong points here and it important to realise that those boys were lying to survive, as their poverty often left them without any power. Telling the truth would have meant death for them. Well done, Joey.
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