In the book Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith, Leo Demidov is an agent of the government agency MGB, working to “take care of” those suspected of committing crimes. He constantly avoids allowing his conscience to affect his job or the things that he does, until one day children start turning up dead. The government tries to cover it up, silencing the families of the children and twisting facts to make their deaths look coincidental. Still, though, he tries to look away from these discrepancies, that is, until he is sent to arrest and torture a man that he knows to be innocent, and then he must spy on his own wife, Raisa. In a way, a mix of fear, compassion, and a sense of justice all compelled him to run away and begin to search for the truth. Fear …show more content…
Firstly, his compassion to be a good citizen and do well for his government caused him to turn a blind eye to the things he was asked to do, even to the point of going after a man he knew was innocent. His compassion to be the best agent he could for the MGB even pushed him to ignore children dying when something was clearly not right. In the end, though, his compassion for his wife overcame that, when her life was in danger. His fear for her life came from his compassion for her, and drove him to give up everything for her. It even drove him to stay by her side, even when she admitted that she only married him out of fear. His love for her overcame his own fears and put his fear for her and her life as his first and foremost priority. Later, though, his compassion turned towards his need to help the children that were being murdered. His compassion to do the right thing, no matter what that may be, drove him to, in the end, kill his younger brother. Though it was his own brother, he knew in his heart that the right thing to do would be to stop him in whatever way possible. Finally, it was his compassion for life and love that brought him and his wife to the decision to adopt the two orphans in the end. In an attempt to make up for what he had done before, he tried to make the lives of two children who had lost everything better by giving them a home to grow and live …show more content…
Though he made mistakes, his fear for his wife’s safety, his need for justice for the dying children, and his compassion for a loyalty to the ones he loved and to justice, allowed him to turn against the people he knew would not hesitate to kill him. It allowed him to make decisions, not for himself, but in the interest of his loved ones and the children being murdered. It was his compassion that allowed him to continue to protect his wife after she admitted to hating him, and to continue to investigate the children’s deaths while being hunted as a criminal. It allowed him to do what he had to and stop his younger brother, and then to start a new life with the two adopted children and Raisa. His fear drove him, his sense of justice directed him, but his compassion forced him to never stop moving forward in the face of danger, to seek the truth and