Control and Manipulation: How to Make Someone Evil

For hundreds of years, the debate between good and evil has been highly controversial. In the 1800’s the ideas of good and evil were easily clarified through God and Satan. However, as science and technology progressed that answer was far too simple to be acceptable any longer. Psychology provided the insight that human beings were responsible for their own actions. The reasons behind good and evil now became people’s intention and actions. Throughout his life, Stephen King found himself facing just what good and evil was. When he was very young his father walked out on his family and he witnessed his friend get killed by a train. These events may have, in turn, influenced his writing about human behavior. Nevertheless, it is apparent that in The Stand he depicts the complex human mind and interactions in order to show both the negative and positive outcomes. Frequently, he supplies cause and effect positions in order to illustrate how not only manipulative circumstances and people are the origins of the transformation to evil, but how the victim receives this manipulation is also another strong factor.

How people define what is good and what is evil can be completely different as well as their opinions on whether or not people are naturally good or bad. Within Stephen King’s The Stand, certain characteristics are easily distinguished as good such as being “thoughtful” (145) or having “a sense of responsibility” (145) which many seek to achieve. Nonetheless, the statement that such attributes are “rare” (145) implies that many give into the pull of evil and cause the number of people who are truly good to decline. This draws up the question as to what really determines evil. There is a further universal set of rules that are ...

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..., it is much more intricate for the victim to identify the reasons behind their abrupt alteration in behavior. If the person can solve out the problem and extract themselves from the situation before they commit an action too far gone into the realms of evil, then they could go back and mend what they have done wrong. Situations are occurring daily where a person may be vaguely manipulated due to a multitude of elements. Yet, the end result will for eternity either be good or evil. No in-between exists.

Works Cited

De Becker, Gavin. The Gift of Fear: Survival Signs That Protect Us from

Violence. Boston: Brown Little, 1997. N. pag. Print.

Forward, Susan. Emotional Blackmail. Ed. Donna Frazier. New York: HarperCollins,

1997. Print.

King, Stephen. The Stand. New York: Penguin Group, 1991. Print.

Zimbardo, Philip. The Lucifer Effect. New York: Random, 2007. Print.