#1 Is Richard a "bad boy"?

I personally do not believe that Richard is a bad boy at heart. Richard commits many actions that would appear bad and receives many well-deserved punishments for them, but Richard does not do those things to be bad. He does them because of his extreme curiosity and his lack of knowledge. Richard is a very good boy at heart, but he is just a naïve child and does not think about the consequences of his actions before he does them. For instance, when Richard set the curtains on fire, he didn’t know or understand the outcome it would bring. In his mind all he was thinking about was whether or not the curtains would look as cool as the broom when it burned. He didn’t understand the concept of how much damage fire can do and how flammable the curtains were, he was only four years old, and how could he have understood that? Also, being of that young an age and wanting to play outside, but being forced to stay inside caused him to desperately find a way to entertain himself and the fire was all he could find. He merely did it out of boredom and curiosity. Also, when he tells his grandmother to kiss his butt, he doesn’t understand what he said or what it meant (41). He cannot even remember where or when he heard those words he just blurted them out at the wrong time. He was not trying to insult his grandmother in any way, but he ended up in a terrible situation because of it.
The reason I say that his beatings were well-deserved, is because he should be punished for doing bad things so that he can learn what is right and what is wrong. But this does not mean he is a bad child.
In this case I definitely believe that Richard’s environment should be blamed for many of his actions. During the time after Richard’s father left and he began spending time in bars getting drunk (21), it was during the times when his mother was gone working and he was left all alone to wander the streets. He was obviously attracted to the saloons because it was like a forbidden fruit because it was a place only for adults. Also, the drunk people around him made it seem like he was okay that he drank and allowed him to do it. It was not his fault that he was pulled into terrible habit a young age because the adults around him were saying it was okay and he was having fun.

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