How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"If it works out the way I want it to, I won't have to report all the distressing details," I said. "It's right enough for the Agency to have rules and regulations, but when you're out on a job you've got to do it the best way you can. And anybody that brings any ethics to Poisonville is going to get them all rusty. A report is no place for the dirty details." (15.24)
So here we see the Op stepping into that gray of moral ambiguity. He has his own code of ethics and yet he admits that he'll have to break some Agency rules. He also feels that Poisonville is too a corrupt a place for ethics to survive there. So if that's the case, then does the Op follow any rules of morality while in the city?
Quote #5
"There's no use taking anybody into court, no matter what you've got on. They own the courts, and, besides, the courts are too slow for us now. […] I've got to have results to hide the details under. So evidence won't do. What we've got to have is dynamite." (15.30)
The Op dismisses the effectiveness of the court system and even goes so far as to suggest that he needs to have big results to cover up the dirty details that led to them. What's happening to the moral structure of the Op's code when he enters Poisonville? Why does he become more and more willing to let things slide all in the name of finding that "dynamite"?
Quote #6
"Now hop to it," I said. "And don't kid yourselves that there's any law in Poisonville except what you make for yourself." (15.34)
The Op seems to have no moral qualms about inventing his own rules and laws in Poisonville. Is it right or wrong of the Op to take matters into his own hands and determine the fates of dozens of so-called criminals? What if the Op is turning into a morally corrupt criminal himself?