Morality

Wright really learns morality from himself. He seems to have a set of morals from the time he is born, influenced in part by his mother, as exemplified by her reaction to the murder of the cat. In a way she tries to educate him in religious morals, but the main portion of his morality comes from himself, and from his reactions to the world around him. Wright learns not to steal when he steals and feels the shame of that action boil up inside him. He learns about the morality of information when he refuses to give a speech that was written for him. Finally, he learns about the morality of the world around him when he sees the blatantly amoral actions of his comrades at the end of the book. The relation between his own moral journey and that of the common schools exist in the tie between literature and morality. The public schools taught morality, conveyed morality, through scripture. Wright does not read the bible in the book, but he learns of the world and his place in it through reading, and attempts to spread his morals and in essence his world view through the written word, as the common schools initially did with the bible.