Submission– Owen’s submission to authority is complicated. Although Owen seems rebellious early in life, seeing his parents as tyrannical, he later becomes a model citizen and even takes “great delight in discipline” in the army. Despite his outward submission, he is one of the least submissive characters from the narratives so far. He is not openly disdainful as Fly was, but he never stops his counterfeit business (even in jail), negotiates with his jailers, and refuses to give away his cohorts. In the end he says that he is “not willing to die.”
Guilt– Owen confesses to his crimes, but he never seems to think of himself as “guilty.” He turns the guilt on the criminal justice system when he says that he will not “betray them (his partners), or be guilty of shedding their blood.” He has a perspective that many modern readers can by sympathetic to, which is that murder is a more serious crime than counterfeit and counterfeit should not be punishable by death. Although he says at one point that he “deserves” the gallows, he seems to be talking more about the standard punishment than the punishment he thinks he deserves.
Money-Maker– According to the text, early in Syllavan’s life, there are no signs of his being overly ambitious or greedy, but later his identity becomes completely wrapped up in his job as a money-maker. Despite the promise he showed in other fields, he does not seem to consider switching once he gets in trouble. People refer to him as money-maker, often in a derogatory way, but it is a carefully crafted career for him that he takes seriously and seems to take pride in.