Bartleby the Scrivener: His unwillingness to explain his behavior reflects his unwillingness to conform to Wall Street society or its expectations.
“Dally was real. I liked my books and clouds and sunsets. Dally was so real he scared me.”
What goes unsaid until the end of the story is that Pony, like Dally, needs a book to explain him, but is forced to write it himself.
Johnny also urges Ponyboy to "stay gold," by which he means to stay the way he is and follow his dreams.
Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov is the fictional protagonist of Crime and Punishment by Feodor Dostoevsky. Emotionally, physically (due to lack of food) and financially stressed, his behaviour in public becomes progressively more erratic through the book as madness gradually consumes him. Raskolnikov fluctuates between extremes of altruism and apathy.
The general morality of today
Both Edwards and Priestley wrote about free will. Edwards states that free will requires the will to be isolated from the moment of decision.
Bartleby’s isolation from the world allows him to be completely free. He has the ability to do whatever he pleases.
One of Locke's fundamental arguments against innate ideas is the very fact that there is no truth to which all people attest. He took the time to argue against a number of propositions that rationalists offer as universally accepted truth, for instance the principle of identity, pointing out that at the very least children and idiots are often unaware of these propositions.
Tabula rasa is the epistemological theory that individuals are born without built-in mental content and that their knowledge comes from experience and perception. Generally proponents of the tabula rasa thesis favour the "nurture" side of the nature versus nurture debate, when it comes to aspects of one's personality, social and emotional behaviour, and intelligence.
