Jasper Jones

I am currently studying Jasper Jones as a text for "moral conflicts". Could you please give me some ideas?

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Jasper Jones contains a number of key moral conflicts based around keeping secrets and making promises concerning the death of Laura Wishart. The story begins as Charlie Bucktin is approached by Jasper Jones, the town trouble-maker, who claims to have found his girlfriend, Laura, dead. Jasper believes that he will be blamed for Laura's death and asks Charlie to promise him not to tell anyone what happened and to help him hide the body until he (Jasper) can find out who committed the murder. Charlie agrees, though he immediately feels guilty as he wants to tell the police. In one case, Charlie is terrified that the police already know of his involvement.

However, Charlie regrets his promise for two overarching two reasons.

The first reason is that Charlie has to plead ignorance when the townspeople begin to search for Laura. In a variety of circumstances, Charlie could have helped the search and told the truth about where Laura was (as he and Jasper had placed her body at the bottom of a dam). For instance, he was once at a town meeting about Laura's death where someone threw out Jasper's name, causing Charlie to feel guilty. Though in this case, Charlie realized that keeping quiet really had saved Jasper.

The second reason is that Charlie gradually grows closer to Laura's sister Eliza and often wants to tell her what he knows. Because Charlie knows that Eliza would want to know what happened to her sister, he is conflicted about keeping his promise, often wondering what the right thing to do is given his circumstances.

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