Alan,
I agree that it's hard to draw the line between amoral,
immoral and a personal, though maybe warped, sense of
morality. For instance, where does Marlowe's Earl Drake fall?
Sure, he is one hard, nasty guy, but is he amoral? Many of
his actions seem to be based as much on his own ideas of
morality -- a former partner must be avenged, say, is as
important as getting the money back. Parker would sure go
after the money, but he wouldn't put himself out for, much
less ever worry about avenging anyone else. Isn't that why
Westlake said he didn't think The Jugger worked, because it
was out of character for Parker to worry about another
person, instead of just killing him as a loose end?
Parker is cold. Although Parker can be brutal when he feels
it's called for, he is not nasty. That requires a personal
involvement that is foreign to Parker. Drake, on the other
hand, can be very hot. He is very emotionally involved and
wants to see those who have wronged him suffer. That seems to
me to grow from a personal sense of morality.
Mark
-- # Plain ASCII text only, please. Anything else won't show up. # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 29 Aug 2003 EDT