In this section of the book, the young Ned Kelly appears to be mostly an ordinary, fairly good and responsible young boy. He takes care of his younger siblings, respects his mother, and even helps her to deliver his new sister, despite the difficulties it causes him during and after the birth. Although he does kill a cow, it wasn't from any sort of hostility or desire to be cruel to animals, but rather a desire to feed and provide for his family. If Ned was raised in a normal home, I have no doubt that he would have grown up to be a totally normal, contributing member of society.
However, we know from the introductory section that Ned Kelly becomes a feared outlaw, wanted for stealing and murder. How did this sweet little boy transform into such a monster? When looking at it from a modern developmental psychology perspective it's easy to figure out. Ned was basically raised in a shack, by a mother who clearly hopped into bed with anyone. He was blamed for his father's failings and later was sent away while still very young to be an apprentice to a criminal. At this critical age of his development, it was obviously very detrimental to be treated in such a way. Ned probably felt rejected by his family, which halted his moral development and cause him to later be able to steal and murder without being disturbed by it.
You’re right, Ned Kelly is a product of his environment and if his environment had been different so would his persona. However, I don’t think Red Kelly was a bad father. He wasn’t a great father, but I understand what he was doing. He was raising his son to be a tough man in tough times, where things were going to be unfair and your skin had to be thick in order to survive. Ned Kelly reminds me of a Drill Instructor in boot camp. He showed Ned all the skills he needed to survive and was unpleasant about it because he was preparing him for war, figuratively, and war is unpleasant, so one has to be prepared for it. It was for Ned’s own good.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that may be absolutely nothing at all but caught my attention is the situation with Red’s black cat. That house had eight people in it while Red was imprisoned, and the cat choose to run away to be with Red at the prison (p28). Red must have shown the cat a good amount of affection and the cat must have felt the same way if it gave up a home to be near him. Unless the cat’s a glutton for punishment or the scene was purely coincidental or had some other symbolist meaning. Maybe Red showed the cat the affection he wanted to show his kids but didn’t because he thought it would make them weak.
Lastly, I would like to comment on the point you made that Ned would become a prominent member of society, had it not been for his shady upbringing. The society Ned was living was one of oppression, and everyone in a position of authority thus far has proven to be corrupt. The English sergeant that locked up his 15 year old uncle and made his mother cry, sergeant O’Neal who only wanted to get in his mother’s pants and treated him miserably, and the judge who sentenced his Uncle James to death. Even a man brought up under the best of ethical and moral values would find this offensive and unfair and maybe Ned would still become a vigilante of justice for the sake of his people, maybe it’s his destiny…If you believe in destinies.
I enjoyed your reading your post.
-Tomas Suarez
I don't agree with your conclusion that Ned's difficult upbringing limited his ethical development and turned him into a noncontributing member of society. I would in fact argue the opposite.
ReplyDeleteNed had a very unnatural development, living in a house that did not instill a strong sense of 'national' law being equivalent to fairness and justice. His heroes and parents are lawbreakers, such as the man who teaches him to break horses, Harry, and his father, who was a convicted criminal.
However, this does not mean that he did not have a sense of fairness and justice. In the jerilderie letter, we learn that he is not a wanton killer, and refuses to kill in cold blood, rationalizing all his killings with self-defense. Ned never grew up with an ethical fear of killing, but definitely understands the right to life in individuals and the stigma of death. We can see in the book up to this point that he cares deeply for his family, esp. when he consistently tries to go back after Harry takes him (72).
This divergent ethical growth allows Ned to rebel against his (as thomas shows) unjust societal place. He doesn't fear the law, but instead upholds his own sense of justice and law, which considering australia at the time, perhaps was more fair. As americans, we believe constitutionally that it is our right to pursue fair government for ourselves. This, it would seem from Ned's story, is what he does. Instead of letting a flawed, racist gouvernment decide what is just and do him in, he resists arrest and ends up becoming a wanted man.
Depending upon how you look at contributing to society, confronting unfairness in government, even when it comes to your life on the line, in the pursuit of justice, seems to be fairly contributy to me, even more than a normal person.