Hunted Past Reason

Currently I am reading the novel Hunted Past Reason  by Richard Matheson. It is definitely one of the most interesting and hard pounding books I ever read. The story starts when two friends Doug, and Bob go on a hiking trip in northern California so that Bob can gather information on the book he is writing about backpacking and wilderness survival. At the beginning of the hike, the two friends get along well enough, with a few arguments between the two about Bob's slow walking pace leaving them behind schedule, and Doug treating Bob as a minority. But as the days go by, tensions start to rise. Doug begins to show signs of jealousy toward Bob's successful writing career, and even makes it seem like it's Bob's fault that his life his headed for the worse and his son died. Doug begins to bring up anything to argue about, even comparing his fairly conservative view on government to Bob's liberal one, and bringing up his biased views on different races and religions. Eventually, Doug shows his true evil jealous self toward the world and Bob, which he has been hiding for years. Deciding to take all of his anger out on Bob, he proposes a game, that if Doug reaches his cabin which is their ultimate destination point, he will let him live, but if Doug catches Bob before so, he will kill Bob, hide his remains, and attempt to get Bob's wife Marian to love him. And so Bob's epic race to get away from Doug's insanity in order to live, and protect his wife.
         While reading this book, I learned a lot about the true nature of people, and what lies beneath the fake facade others create to hide their true personality. This was the case with Doug, and his abrupt outburst toward his life. For many years, he had been treated unfair as a child while his father beat him, and his mother was a drunk. When he grew older, he often had hard times finding work in the theater business, and making ends meet. His son even died from a drug overdose. With all of this anger toward his life, career, and family issues boiling inside him, he finally let it all erupt toward Bob while the enforced isolation exposed this true anger.
        Although this is only a fictional piece of work, this same "emotional" explosion that Doug had experienced can also happen in today's actual society. People will let out their anger on innocent people just to get it off their minds and be free of their worries. We are often reminded of this in history as scapegoats have been used for just such purposes. One example of this can be seen in Hitlers genocide of the Jewish people, and also of modern day bullying in school from possible mistreatment at home. This is why some of us need to learn how to express our anger in appropriate manners and not let it out on others.