a part of Coriolanus’s characterization that has always stuck out to me is the implication that he may actually do 'good' things throughout the novel, the best example being the instinctive and ambiguous drop of the handkerchief in the tank, but because he uses selfish means to rationalize said actions, it doesn't even matter if his motives were selfish or not. Perhaps it could be argued either way, but is it truly a good deed if you find yourself rationalizing it until it's not?
It’s what makes him a villain, right? Mindset. The idea that no matter what your choices are: love, kindness, betrayal, if you're rationalizing them through selfish means, or refusing to acknowledge that said choices were harmful, then your mindset will never allow you to be a good person. That's like the whole book.
I guess my point is, when I reread the book and come across that scene in which Coriolanus explains that he was the one kid who was not outwardly rude to the district boy, and he explains that the reason why he did so was to look amiable, not because of friendship, I genuinely wonder if that was the case.
Perhaps an eight-year-old boy was just nice, not even terribly kind, just nice to a boy. Perhaps, even for a moment, he forgot that he'd been raised to think this boy was subhuman and just saw another boy being bullied and decided not to do it.
And the fact that selfish or not selfish, it doesn't matter. We don't get the eight-year-olds pov, we get the eighteen-year-olds, whose already falling deep into this mindset that the world is cruel and selfish and eight-year-old boys don't do nice things for unselfish reasons.
