Throughout my career as a high school Honors English student, I have read and analyzed many different books. I have seen themes such as challenging the system in Fahrenheit 451 and 1984 and the true nature of man in books like Lord of the Flies and The Crucible. While all of the books we have read have had vastly different plots, there has been a common theme: The Struggle between Good and Evil. When I read these books, I often look at the characters in the story, and whether man is inherently good or evil. While at first the obvious choice is that man is evil, I have found that even in the most dire circumstances, man is essentially good. I look to show and discuss this evidence throughout The Road, Oedipus Rex, and all the other books we will read this year!
Cormac McCarthy's The Road documents the journey of a man and his son through post-apocalyptic America. The man is close to death, and his only concern is keeping his son safe. The Man repeatedly tells his son that they are carrying the flame and that they need to continue on. Throughout their journey they encounter other survivors that have turned to killing and cannibalism. Even though the man and the boy are starving, they do not turn to these methods. They know that it is not morally right. The man, and especially the boy, are examples of how man is inherently good. I say especially the boy because of his generosity. When they encountered otheres on the road, the boy always wanted to help and feed them. He even wanted to help a man that they had caught trying to steal all of their possessions. In The Road, man is tested, and the two main characters prove that they are inherently good.
Oedipus Rex is a play that seems to be cursed with evil characters, there is still good in the play. I can even see the good in Oedipus himself, even though he killed his own father. Near the end of the play, when he finds out that his fate has come true and he has in fact killed his father and wed his mother, Oedipus gouges his eyes out. He does this because he cannot believe what has happens. He then exiles himself for the sake of his children. He realizes how backwards and wrong his life has been, and wishes for his children to live a more normal life than his own. This is where we see the good in Oedipus. He only seems to be evil by coincidence, in that he would not have killed his father had he known it was him. In the end of the story he does what is best for his children and removes himself from the picture. This shows that in a story filled with evil, you can still find goodness, and Oedipus is inherently good.
King Lear traces the story of a number of evil characters. After reading a number of Shakespeare's works, I have found that he likes to place a few good characters among a number of evil characters. In Lear, Cordelia, Edgar, The Fool, and possibly Lear are the good characters. Reading Shakespeare makes it hard to believe that man is inherently good. I think that Shakespeare creates characters that are inherently evil, in order to show the weaknesses of man. I can't think of one of Shakespeare's works that don't have a number of truly evil characters. Goneril, Regan, and Edmund are the epitome of evil in King Lear. What makes them evil is that they are willing to do anything, even betray and kill their family members, in order to better their own situations. Both the sisters and Edmund betrayed their fathers and had them exiled so that they could gain power. It is hard to see any good in these characters, and they make it hard to prove my answer to my question. However, Cordelia and Edgar prove that there can be good. Even though they were both surrounded by evil siblings and exiled by their fathers, they continued to be inherently good. So I think that man is still inherently good, but there are always exceptions to this.
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