In a capitalist, materialistic society, the concept of crime is a romanticized one, far-removed and scandalous in its operation. Crime is abstruse, and after centuries of pondering the same question, both psychologists and laymen would give the same vague handful of answers as to why crime exists: poverty, lack of education, and/or negative role models. In Michael Crichton’s The Great Train Robbery, the Victorian populace supposed crime a derivative of the above-stated sources, poverty being considered a sinful, fallen state, in which violence and filth fester. Edward Pierce, the enigmatically charming protagonist of Crichton’s historical novel, apparently suffers no such want, but is instead spurred towards his illicit actions by mere need for exhilaration. …show more content…
If the Pierce’s questionable origin is to be believed, he is “an orphan of Midland’s gentry”(Crichton 6), of noble yet unknown stock. A waif of the Victorian era would not receive any aid, financially or socially, and would be at the mercy of his or her environment. However, an orphan would have social freedoms and untamed tastes that the elite class could not experience. Alternatively, his supposed education would have lead to the adoption of “lewd and drunken behavior”(Crichton 8). In a hierarchical society, the freedom of the base class would be appealing to most, if only at a subconscious level. Whatever Pierce did to gain his exorbitant wealth, it is clear that the practices of a poor orphan boy or of an aristocratic, squandering youth never departed from