Society believes that when something is good or evil it is immutable, which is highly incorrect. A few characteristics society portrays as a clue of good can actually be greatly deceiving. Such as, appearance, reputation, and human nature. Many sources can support this, including: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, “Serial Killers, Evil, and Us,” and the interview with Philip Zimbardo titled “Why Do Good People Do Bad Things?” Appearance tends to mask what a person’s true personality really is. That is what is first noticed about a person upon meeting, but it cannot always be trusted. For one example: serial killers. Ted Bundy was known as “dashingly handsome” (Simon 23), but he was also capable of abducting and murdering twenty-four women and committing nightmarish necrophilic acts with their bodies. Society likes to think that if someone seems friendly they are much more likely to be just that, while people who look evil at first glance are interpreted to be cruel or evil. In NPR, Philip Zimbardo talks about his mock prison and how he carefully selected people who were classified as normal. He made the guards in charge of what happened that at the prison, and they would punish them according to how they saw fit. Zimbardo stated that he conducted this experiment because “that line between good and evil, which privileged people like to think is fixed and impermeable. With them on the good side and others on the bad side, [he] knew that line was movable and it was permeable.”(NPR) This was proven in the experiment; the guards were cruel and humiliated the ‘prisoners’... some of which may have been their own classmates. One of the cruelest acts these ‘guards’ committed was when it was another prisoner’s birthday. The pris... ... middle of paper ... ...l breakdowns, one by one. (NPR) The fact that these were normal college kids who had not done anything cruel in the past shows the kindness and evilness we have in us all. These kids were not cruel before the experiment, they were just pushed past that line of good and evil. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’s story, Jekyll was a kind man. Jekyll, Lanyon, and Utterson were close childhood friends. Utterson had even said that Jekyll was good man and thought that Hyde had blackmailed him into getting all the money in Jekyll’s will. Jekyll had split himself into two, the good being himself while the bad being Mr. Hyde. In this second state he was capable of trampling a little girl and murdering a man single handedly. This whole idea is the very concept that man can actually have good and evil within them. This splitting just allowed Jekyll to get away with everything much easier.
Society tends to misjudge people base on their appearances instead of their personality. As it’s shown on Cyrano de Bergerac story everyone misjudges people. Cyrano was ashamed of the way he looked, especially with his enormous nose that made him stand out. People didn’t care if Cyrano got his feelings hurt they thought he was a cruel person. Its bad when people tends to misjudge people without even knowing them but they just judge them by their looks instead of their personality. People shouldn’t be ashamed of the way they look and it shouldn’t stop them from accomplishing their goals and express their feelings towards the people they like.
The lines that define good and evil are not written in black and white; these lines tend to blur into many shades of grey allowing good and evil to intermingle with each another in a single human being. Man is not inherently good or evil but they are born innocent without any values or sense of morality until people impart their philosophies of life to them. In the words of John Locke:
As Jekyll reached adult hood, he found himself living a dual life. He had become more curious in discovering his other side. Jekyll insists, “Man is not truly one, but truly two” (125). This eventually led Jekyll into the scientific interests of separating his good and evil side, and he finds a chemical concoction that transforms him into a more wicked man, Edward Hyde. At first, Hyde was of pure impulse, but in the end, he became dominate and took control over Jekyll. Jekyll had never intended to hurt anyone, but he was aware that something could potentially go wrong. Jekyll presumes, “I knew well that I risked death, for any drug that so potently shook the very fortress of identity… utterly blot that immaterial tabernacle which I looked to it to change” (127-129). One could say this makes Jekyll equally as menacing as Hyde. Jekyll couldn’t control the imbalance between the two natures. Jekyll foolishly allowed his evil side to flourish and become stronger. This is shown when Jekyll has awoken to find that he has turned into Hyde without taking the solution. Jekyll says, “But the hand in which I now saw, clearly enough in the yellow light of a mid- London morning…It was the hand of Edward Hyde” (139).
Good and evil exist in everyone and any attempts to repress your darker nature can cause it to erupt. Dr. Jekyll was more evil than he wanted to admit to himself or any one before he even separated his soul. Born into a world of privilege and wanting to keep the impression of goodness and morality, Dr. Jekyll really just wanted to indulge in his darkest desires, choosing to hide behind his serum like a coward. However this became his fatal flaw and at the end of the day he could longer hide his true self.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Hyde was an evil being it was slowly starting to take over and Dr. Jekyll knew that was happening. By shutting him out self off more and more he was helping everyone around him. Since he did not have any control over Mr. Hyde he had to stop Mr. Hyde from hurting anyone else and couldn’t tell anyone of these issues. In the book where Hyde and Jekyll are struggling, it says “ I was so far in my reflections” (53). This was Dr. Jekylls note for his struggles when he was finally telling people. He was deep in reflection and hiding them self off because he knew it was too late. It also states in this section of the book: “When Jekyll locks himself in his library” (61). Everyone was worried about him even though sometimes he does do this like in the beginning when he’s in solitude to work on his research. Dr. Jekyll had finally shut himself off from the word completely due to him knowing it was his final moments. He knew that since his potion was out and he could not find more materials it was over so he made a backup plan for when Hyde has taken over. This brutal plan was to kill himself and ultimately this is what he did. He had put all the other parts of the plan into effect and left a note to explain what truly happened, thus signifying the end of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, helping others but only helping him at the
Through the progression of William Golding's Lord of the Flies and the article, “Are Humans Good or Evil” by Clancy Martin and Alan Strudler, a multitude of undeniable evidence is provided to prove that humans are in fact inherently wicked. In Lord of the Flies, a human being’s savage nature and primal instincts are effectively portrayed through the development of Jack, the lead hunter in a group that gets meat for the boys. Little Jack Merridew, who seems to be nothing but a naive and obnoxious chorister, becomes one of the most malicious and violent boys on the island. Jack's wilder side shows itself the most when he goes hunting. Making one his first kills brought such exhilaration, satisfaction, and pure bloodlust, that it drove him to insane limits,
Sometimes people overlook certain details, and qualities about a person, things such as how evil someone may be on the inside. Maybe these details are overlooked due to how innocent someone may appear to be. In the two short stories, “The Possibility Of Evil” by Shirley Jackson, and “Lamb To The Slaughter” by Roald Dahl, both of the main characters have appearances that are very misleading and far from the truth. In “The Possibility Of Evil”, Miss Strangeworth (the main character) looks like a nice old lady, but is actually sortof evil. In “Lamb To The Slaughter”, the main character, Mary Maloney appears to be loving and sweet, but she’s really a murdered. In these two stories, there is a common theme of; looks can be deceiving.
Good and Evil in Good Country People In her short story, Good Country People, Flannery O’Connor employs all the elements of humor, irony and, paradox intermingled within the system of Christian belief in evil and redemption. This is no more evident than in the character of Joy, the daughter, who lost a leg in a hunting accident at the age of 12 and who now has a wooden leg in his place. Throughout the story, it becomes increasingly clear that Joy’s physical affliction is closely paralleled by a spiritual one as well. As the narrative unfolds, the great lengths Joy has gone to recreate her inner self, her soul, are revealed in painstaking detail.
In "Good Country People" by Flannery O'Connor, the masked truth is reflected unequivocally through the reality in the story, its equal counterpart. For every good or evil thing, there is an antagonist or opposing force. Each character has a duplicate personality mirrored in someone else in the story.
Innocence is a trap. It is strangled with the ideals of perfection and suffocates the cravings of curiosity. Goodness is expectant and evil is poisonous. However, good and evil resides in even the most innocent of people. Both are nefarious and pestilent to easily corrupt targeted souls in sinister actions. Both equate to uncontrollable factors. Goodness tends to covet the sensations of evil since it depreciates its own purity. In the oscillating novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, written by Robert Louis Stevenson, goodness was trapped by evil just as Jekyll was trapped as Hyde. Jekyll’s pure spirituality desired the holy richness of evil and all its wrongdoings. His laboratory experiments discovered his desire to feel the sensation of evil without truly being evil. His laboratory experiments discovered a way for him to escape. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde fought the battle between good and evil proving the apparent strengths and weaknesses that overall transformed two souls into a single corpse.
Jekyll plays man as a whole, good and bad, he was “wild” and also “smooth-faced” at the same time. Both characters lack vital emotional outputs that make humans socially, even though the psychopath is more cunning than the sociopath. “…lack of conscience, remorse or guilt for hurtful actions to others….There may be an intellectual understanding of appropriate social behavior but no emotional response to the actions of others” (“Psychopath vs. Sociopath” -- http://www.diffen.com/difference/Psychopath_vs_Sociopath). Both are social defaces, and cannot be helped; however to the naked eye, these two characters are savage. Both victims of anti-social disorder are lacking factors that make humans acceptably sociable, one lacking empathy while the other lacks sensibility. Diffen, a website, tells us, “Psychopaths…lack of empathy; no conscience…sociopaths…high impulsivity” (“Sociopathy versus Psychopathy” -- http://www.diffen.com/difference/Sociopathy_versus_Psychopathy). Dr. Jekyll shows no empathy by using and manipulating people close to him, and Mr. Hyde, as intended, has no sensibility to act with caution resulting himself in trouble for barbaric actions. This, in turn shows the comparison and contrast of the psychopathic creator and his sociopathic creation which in reality are two halves to a whole.
Jekyll says, “With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two” (Stevenson 83). Jekyll believes he will get pleasure from both alters without any backlash; however, Hyde soon becomes more powerful than his ‘good’ alter and ultimately leads Dr. Jekyll to his doom (Singh). Stevenson creates in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, to coexistent to make up a “normal” individual (Singh). Seeing things as Jekyll did, “Humans are half-good, half-evil” Stevenson separated the two, making one pure good (Jekyll) and one pure evil, as Jekyll says, “Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil” (Stevenson 88). After all, good and evil are independent objects, people; they possess distinctive psychological characteristics and consistently fight with each
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are both different is morality. Both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde have highly different morals. For example Dr. Jekyll’s morals are to contain the evil inside him and to keep his good side away from his bad side. Eventually Dr. Jekyll’s for trying to isolate his evil side it took over him. Dr. Jekyll’s mind was too weak that is how Mr. Hyde took over. Which now lead to Mr. Hyde’s evil mind, Mr. Hyde is the evil side to Dr. Jekyll and now he has full control. Mr. Hyde is the moral downfall of Dr. Jekyll.
All things in nature possess good and evil in order to keep balance in the universe. Evil can also bring out the good in people especially when they realize how their anger or hatred causes hurt or pain in one another. In Jekyll and Hyde, his experiment was never meant to cause harm; he just wanted to get rid of the evil in him. Little did he know that he would end up killing people and causing mayhem. He disrupted nature’s balance of good and evil, causing harm to those around him as well as himself. When he possessed both good and evil, he felt like something in his life was missing because he could not always feel the pleasures that he watched others enjoy. Jekyll had an urge to do an experiment on himself to help try to bring balance to his life so he could feel happier. However, when he split his good and evil side, he ended doing the opposite: complete true good and true evil. The good side of him knew that he had made a mistake. The more he tries to split the personalities, the stronger the evil grows. The same type of situation occurs between Romeo and Juliet. The more their families try to keep them apart, the more Romeo and Juliet need to be together. Evil came from the fate of Romeo and Juliet’s love story causing them to make rash decisions. As fate comes into play, the stronger everyone’s anger develops among the families. This evil ends up causing more hurt and pain than ever before, which in turn,
Jekyll’s thought process was destroyed with these horrific pangs of mean wishes upon others. Lanyon, an old colleague of Jekyll, did not agree with Jekyll’s scientific works. Lanyon was more of a realist, while Jekyll performed more abstract procedures. Jekyll was cured from the possible stress that he might not live his life out to the fullest, so he created Hyde and did whatever he wanted. Hyde created a barrier Jekyll could pass and become however evil he desired.