Miles’s most intense internal conflict stems from the concept of legacy and what it means to be a part of one. Miles’s father, Jeff Davis, and his uncle, the deceased Aaron Davis, both lived lives of crime in their adolescence and into early adulthood. While Mr. Davis changed the course of his life away from stealing, his brother Aaron eventually died in the act. An immense amount of pressure is placed on Miles to break the cycle of crime that seems to plague his paternal family. Miles grapples with the idea of legacy, its hand in his own (supposed) predisposition to evil, and is eventually able to overcome this fear by dedicating himself to bettering his community.

For most of the novel, Miles wonders if it is even possible for him to break the cycle of crime that he and others (like Mr. Chamberlain and the dean) use to define his family. He wonders if he’s predisposed to committing crimes, likening it to “how really tall people usually have really tall parents. Or how you can be predisposed to be an alcoholic if one of your parents is. Miles had what he always had considered complicated genetics: bad blood” (22).