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BROTHERS & KEEPERS - Wideman   Term Paper ID:27900 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Examines psychology of criminal behavior as presented by J.E. Wideman in BROTHERS & KEEPERS.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Examines psychology of criminal behavior as presented by J.E. Wideman in BROTHERS & KEEPERS. Paper Introduction: THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE The book Brothers and Keepers by John Edgar Wideman is the true account of a novelist about the fact that his brother is sentenced to prison for life for murder, something the novelist's brother tries to understand and with which he has to cope. The first question he considers is why his brother ends up in prison while he goes a very different direction in life. He further questions the meaning of criminal behavior and how it develops. He examines the nature of the prison system. He must learn to cope with that system as a visitor, an outsider who is given insight by his visits and by letters written by his brother from the inside. Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. WIDEMAN Wideman begins with the proposition that he and his brother are muchalike, with the same background and upbringing, and yet they have divergedat some point. Itthus has elements of both genetic theories and environmental theories. (Wideman, 1984, p. . THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE The book Brothers and Keepers by John Edgar Wideman is the trueaccount of a novelist about the fact that his brother is sentenced toprison for life for murder, something the novelist's brother tries tounderstand and with which he has to cope. The more you delve and backtrack and think, the more clear it becomes that nothing has a discrete, independent history; people and events take shape not in orderly, chronological sequence but in relation to other forces and events. (1991). Mommy's been saying for as long as I can remember: That Robby. New York: Penguin.----------------------- 7 The bad seed, the good seed. . There are severaltheories of how the environment influences the development of criminalbehavior, but both brothers have had the same environment for theirformative years. An examination of Wideman's account will show where he and hisbrother might fall on this continuum. He mustlearn to cope with that system as a visitor, an outsider who is giveninsight by his visits and by letters written by his brother from theinside. Crime cannot be understood in terms ofheredity alone, but heredity is one of the factors. Brothers and keepers. Every day God sends here Robby thinks is a party. . He further questions the meaning of criminal behaviorand how it develops. (Wideman, 1984, p. Somewhere, he knew always that they did notmatch, but it was easier not to deal with this fact than to try to gain thestrength to cope the way everyone else seemed to be able to do. The other isenvironment, which also cannot explain crime alone but which is animportant element when brought into conjunction with personality. There are three temperamentor personality factors that are placed on a continuum, with the neuroticismand extraversion lines at right angles and intersecting, while psychoticismis on a separate continuum. However, as he discussesthe matter it becomes clear that his brother and he have differentpersonalities, and they would thus have reacted to their environment indifferent ways according to Eysenck's theory. The two were raised in the same house, they have thesame parents, they lived in the same neighborhood as children, andtherefore they had many of the same experiences. He wants to find that point, to understand what it was thatcaused his brother to go one way and he another. Eysenck places heavy emphasis on genetic predispositions towardcriminal conduct and antisocial behavior. The first question he considersis why his brother ends up in prison while he goes a very differentdirection in life. (Wideman, 1984, p. She's right, ain't she? . Eysenck's approachsuggests ways of preventing crime by altering some aspect of the mix, andhe would thus be in agreement with the sociological theorists thatcorrecting the environment would reduce the likelihood of the developmentof antisocial behavior at least in some people. ReferencesBartol, C. (Wideman, p. Where a person falls on the continuum showswhether they are an extravert, introvert, or ambivert (Bartol, 1991, pp.4 -41). There have been many theories offered to explain why some peoplebecome criminals, and the author looks to some of these theories to givehim the answer as to why his brother has become a criminal and he has not.There is always in his desire to find this answer a certain sense of guilt,as if he has failed to help his brother or as if he should have followedthe same path in life. . he wakes up in the morning looking for the party. . Eysenckconducted a series of studies to determine that there are four higher orderfactors of personality that are in operation. He does not claim that certainindividuals are born criminals, but he says that some people are born withcharacteristics of the nervous system that are significantly different fromthe general population and that affects their ability to conform to socialexpectations placed upon them. In the Eysenck model,criminal behavior is the result of an interaction between certainenvironmental conditions and inherited features of the nervous system. 4 ). Wideman sees this aspect of his brother's personality and comments onit as he remembers what they were like as children, how his mother wouldreact to the two of them, and how his brother was always looking for aparty while he understood the worth of things and worked to get them in theusual way: You never know exactly when something begins. People are rarely found at either extreme, andmost are in the middle. 19)Wideman explicitly makes the link here between DNA--genetics--andenvironment to show that neither alone explains anything but that thecomplexities of their interaction can explain, though we may never be ableto unravel the complexities to see how this process has taken place. Forthis boy, though, the world would be shaped by his inner life. The world of the angry black kid growing up in the sixties was a world in which to be in was to be out--out of touch with the square world and all of its rules on what's right and wrong. The nature of the brother's personality is actually revealed in thefirst paragraph of the book, an introductory paragraph before the main bodyof the book begins in which the brother talks about how he behaved when hewas six or seven years old and walking down the street looking at passingcars and wishing he could buy them for the change in his pocket. Bartol (1991) discusses this theory as developed by Hags J. I ducked hard things that took effort or work and tried to have fun, make a party, cause that was always easy. 3)Here we see the interaction of personality and environment, though theenvironment is not differentiated and could be any environment at all. He feelsnow that what he was doing then was looking at the world in an unrealisticway, a way that made the world easier and that made things have less valueso they could be acquired without worthwhile effort: What I'm trying to say is that while I was walking through life I had a distorted view of how I wanted things to be rather than how they really were or are. He examines the nature of the prison system. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.Wideman, J. (1984). Theauthor never really comes to a conclusion about which theory applies, butmuch of what he says would point to Eysenck's theory of personality andcrime. The thing was to make your own rules, do your own thing, but make sure it's contrary to what society says or is. Always wanted things to be easy; so instead of dealing with things as they were, I didn't deal with them at all. He wouldsee the world in the way he wanted it to be and then refuse to react withthe world as it really was so as not to be disappointed that the realityand the image did not match. R. E. The younger brother has acceptedcertain ideas and attitudes from that environment, not because they werebetter ideas but because they fit with his personality of always lookingfor a party and avoiding work and effort: In the real world, the world left for me, it was unacceptable to be "good," it was square to be smart in school, it was jive to show respect to people outside the street world, it was cool to be cold to your woman and the people that loved you. Hesays that a comprehensive theory of criminality "must allow for theexamination of the neurological makeup and the unique socialization historyof each individual" (p. Eysenckgoes so far as to state that certain personalities are more susceptible tocertain crimes than to others. Wideman was notbeaten down by that environment, but his brother gave in to it because ofhis different personality characteristics. 2 )The irony is that the party has taken Robby to prison where there is noparty at all. The two elements--personality and environment--meshed in a way that produced antisocial behavior and attitudes, while hisbrother, with a very different personality, reacted to the same environmentby overcoming it and getting out of the ghetto. Crime and criminality are not in themselvesinnate, but in reaction with the environment certain personalitycharacteristics may produce a person who will act in an antisocial manner.Certain features of the central and autonomic nervous systems might beisolated to account for differences found in personality. 58) The awareness that Robby has now of the source of his problem showsthat his personality is not criminal in and of itself but that it wasreacting to his environment. ForEysenck, the neurological underpinnings of personality are one of the primedeterminants of antisocial and criminal behavior. Criminal behavior. Mom's nearly always right in her way, the special way she has of putting words together to take things apart. . Other theories try to find genetic reasons for criminalbehavior, and yet these two brothers are close together genetically. Eysenckin 1989. Eysenck's theory was a counter to sociological approaches that hebelieved had little to offer toward understanding crime or treating it.Eysenck instead argues that psychological knowledge provides the keyanswers and strategies for the prevention of criminal behavior. Thepersonality of the younger brother is key to how he has been shaped by thatenvironment: Always there. The environment in which the two were raised was in the black ghetto,a breeding ground for crime and antisocial behavior. 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