en and he doesn’t want to be a part of it. This relates to the theory not because he is making an excuse for himself to perform a deviant act, that will come later, but an excuse to let others do deviant acts because of him(The Denial of the Victim). Peer pressure alone, is the excuse needed for Eddie to give in. Now for the LSD incident. Eddie is, without a doubt, anti-LSD. He won’t sell it and he sure wont use it. However, LSD, a supposed “white drug” and well known for loosening inhibitions, finally needs to be done to prove a point. In his eyes he needs to take the drug to show to his peers, both higher and lower ranking to him, that he is a normal person, though one of the few blacks in a predominately white school, and that even he can just “chill” sometimes, in order to fit in more. As for the lies, they are clear even in his drug taking. He will do anything just to fit in or be part of the norm. He feels like he has to do the dramatic to become one of the “druggies”. He makes up crazy stories about fights he has been in, gives in to peer pressure, and takes LSD, which in his eyes is the devil, just to be part of the norm. This falls under the Strain Theory. He has all of these negative relationships with everyone. He turns to deviance to fit in. This is clear when they go to the Picnic at Fort Rock. He is there but he isn’t like them. He can’t just chill out. He is so uptight. This is also part of the reason he takes LSD. Because he wants to prove that he can let his body go. One of the characteristics with individuals in Strain Theory is violence and this comes out shortly after taking the LSD. After this the negative relationships only grow worse. The worse the relationships got the more deviant he became. Examples of this were clear when he returned to Harlem. Deviant acts such as violence, which were not of his character were starting to ha...
