The Finder final post

Where is the line between when it is acceptable to kill and when it is a crime. Under the law, a person can be thrown in jail for manslaughter or murder but if a person can prove that they had to kill another person in self defense, they can go free. Often, this choice is not clear cut. This sometimes murky division is seen in Colin Harrison's book The Finder. In this book we see some very obvious examples of clear cut murder but some have several other dimensions. A man, Victor, attacks a drugged man who is helpless to defend himself. Harrison writes, "Richie had never had a chance, his shirtless body still sprawled in the position of deep sleep, hands out, shoes off, his boxer shorts askew, belly soft, a tattooed lightning bolt adorning his hip bone. Next to him, the bedside table drawer had been yanked open. On the floor lay the bloody golf club, bent in the middle now" (157). This gruesome way of dying- beaten to death with a golf club, seems senseless and horrible. However, it is not as clear cut as it seems. The man who beat Richie to death was doing so in order to get revenge on him for sexually abusing his sister. Does this justify the death? Does anything ever justify a death? These are some of the main questions that run through the plot of the book.

Harrison writes about these murders without an extreme bias. We are somewhat led to believe a certain way but we are also indoctrinated by society to believe that some crimes are in fact justified. Frequently, the line between murder and self-defense is unrecognizably blurred. Ray fights with the same man that killed Richie in order to rescue Jin Li. The scene is described, "Victor howled and lunged blindly at Ray, his hands grabbing him by the throat, and the two men stumbled backward toward the tub- which is where Ray tripped, and as he fell he twisted sideways and victor sprawled awkwardly across the tub, sinking heavily into the lumpy mixture and simultaneously setting its contents on fire" (318). While it can be argued that Ray was only protecting himself and didn't directly kill Victor, it is also true that his actions led to Victor's death and without Ray, he would not have been killed. These are the questions we as a society must ask ourselves. When is ending a life justified? Where can we draw the line between murder and self-defense? and is there ever a time or a situation where it is good to end some one's life? These questions have been asked by many throughout history and will continue to be asked. They may, in fact, be impossible to ever answer

Self Preservation (The Finder post #5)

When a person is threatened, just like all animals, they are faced with the choice to either flee the scene or fight against it. This is an instinct that effects people in different ways. In Shakespeare's King Lear, Edgar flees from his family and disguises himself as Poor Tom when he hears that his father is trying to kill him. We also see several different responses to threats in Colin Harrison's book The Finder. Although in general, we may think of a threat as a physical threat, a person can also face the threat of economic ruin and the loss of pride. This is what threatens Martz, a billionaire Hedge fund manager whose choice of a certain stock has drastically fallen. In order to save his face and his wealth, he arranges for an illegal stock lift. He threatens Chen, Jin Li's brother, who provides information to investors, in order to get his help. He tells him that if he he does not cooperate, he will turn him into the authorities. He says, "The last thing you want to do is be arrested for illegal trading here. This will launch an investigation into everything you have ever done, and like a fatal disease it will touch all of the people to whom you have ever given information. It will cause loss of face" (276). Martz knows that in order to save himself, he must carry out the stock price lift. He is willing to threaten and terrorize others in order to do this. This is one example of how, when backed into a corner, a person will either try to flee or will fight for themselves.

In addition to the less tangible threat of economic and personal ruin, there is also the more obvious physical threat to a person. When Jin Li is kidnapped by the man that murdered the two Mexican girls at the beginning of the book, she is afraid that he will eventually torture, rape, and kill her. She is trapped in a hidden room, chained to the wall. Also in the room with her is a bathtub full of a reeking brown goop that is, unknown to her, the remains of another man dissolved in acid. Using her chemistry knowledge, she uses a bucket to concentrate the acid to prepare for anything that might come:

"She watched the liquid settle and ever so subtly separate, the water rising to the top. She took off her shoe and stirred the stuff with it. The shoe started to smoke, but the water was brought to the surface. She tipped the bucket and poured of the brownish water, and it trickled across the cement floor toward the drain. . . Jin Li coughed a moment, then remembered to slide the bucket around the edge of the mattress, where he would be less likely to see it and discover what she had done." (299)

In order to prepare for what might happen to her, Jin Li uses her resourcefulness to come up with a way to protect herself if she needs to. This response will eventually help save her life later. When faced with adversity, human beings resourcefully use whatever means available to them to devise ways to save themselves.

What makes us who we are?

What causes a person to become the person they are? How do seemingly normal people end up to be the most horrible people who have ever lived? When reading about the holocaust or about a gruesome crime, these questions are often prominent in our minds. The factors that shape us are some of the most important events in our lives, but how do they truly influence us? How can it be that someone with a seemingly normal childhood grow up to be someone like Dr. Josef Mengele, a doctor at Auschwitz? He had a normal family and was seen to be a nice person by his neighbors as he grew up. As an adult, however, he conducted thousands of horrible medical experiments on children in the concentration camps, never pausing to consider the consequences of what he was doing. These same questions and situations are addressed in Colin Harrison's book The Finder. In the book, Martz, a wealthy but aging businessman, is losing millions of dollars on Good Pharma company stock. He threatens Tom Reilly, the vice president of the company. Why does he do this? Reilly's wife, a physician gives her opinion, "based on my clinical experience, and a brief interaction, the man you are in trouble with cannot be depended upon to be highly rational! Or kind and decent! I don't care how much money he has! He's an animal under stress! He's got high cortisol levels, increased blood pressure, who knows what" (220). Martz has prostrate cancer and it is affecting the chemicals and hormones in his blood, causing him to become extremely irrational. This is an example of aspects that are beyond one's control, but this is not always the case.

Tom Reilly himself also has drastically changed as a result of the situations he faces in daily life. His job has forced him to change the way to think and has restructured his brain. He has learned a certain way to think and converse with people but it has changed him from the person he used to be. His wife describes how he has changed:

"The overall functioning of his brain becoming, arguably, more specialized in
the exact manner the company required. . . . His sense of humor was
far less subtle, more brutal and dark. Certain of his mental functions
were more highly developed. . . . He was in fact very good with the social
aspect of the job. . . But these were not authentic responses, she'd come to
see. . . . they were algorithmic." (221-222)

He has become a person totally different from the man she married and it has cost him. Under stress, he ordered the murder of two girls that he suspected were contributing to the lowering stock price of his company by stealing information. The strain of his job has caused him to change his morals and the way he conducts business. He could have stopped some of the effects of his job but he chose not to. These are some of the aspects of one's life that influence the type of people they become.