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Example research essay topic: Good And Evil Standards Of Beauty - 2,387 words

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Comparison of "Evil" The definition of evil, though very broad, is said to be morally reprehensible or the bringing of suffering and misfortune: for example, the opposite of good. Evil serves as everything that a person fears and hates. It serves as a foil to the qualities of good. Where good brings love, evil spawns hate; where good brings hope, evil creates despair. The conflict between Good and Evil can be traced back to Biblical times and can be characterized by the conflict between God and Satan.

As the books of the Bible progress, we see Satan or evil attempt to influence or corrupt innocent people. This seems to be one of the earliest examples of evil in writing. Throughout literary history, the conflict of Good versus Evil has tended to dominate the classical literary trend and has been utilized by numerous authors. In the play Billy Budd, the author, Hermann Melville, creates two conflicting character personalities which are portrayed as good and evil. John Claggart (Master-At-Arms) tries to destroy Billy Budd because he is jealous of Billy's reputation and acceptance among the crew.

There is also a conflict involving Captain Vere when he is forced to decide on the fate of Billy Budd after he kills Claggart. Billy is a handsome, young sailor, new to the ship and eager to impress. Billy becomes very popular with the crew. When seeing Billy accepted by the crew it reminds him of the their dislike for him and he becomes jealous. The Danksters conversation with Claggart also shows his fear that he will lose the power he held from the fear of others when he says they turn from hating you to loving him, and leave you impotent. Claggart becomes determined in destroying Billy's reputation.

Claggart lives on hurting people and his evil nature prevails through his attempts to bring down Billy throughout the play such as when he orders Squeak to put that new seaman Budd on report and when he lies to the captain and falsely accuses Billy of starting a mutiny. Billy is innocent in a sense that he has done no wrong which leads to his blind and naive view of evil. The Dankster tries to warn Billy that nobody's friend is Jimmy-Legs and by saying he is down on you but he does not see Claggart to be a threat of any sort. Billy's innocence and devotion to good do not let him see the evil in Claggart whom is trying to destroy him but eventually conflict resulting in the murder of Claggart from a blow by Billy.

Billy's retaliation leads to another conflict between good and evil where Captain Vere must decide Billy's fate after he commits a crime punishable by death after killing Claggart. Vere likes Billy's character and would not like to see Billy put to death. Vere accepts that Claggart provoked Billy's retaliation by lying and can see the evil in Claggart but also recognizes the call of duty which at war-time was non-tolerable for such an offence. Vere is troubled with the conflict of conscience and duty and under the circumstances of war he does what is right and has Billy hung. Captain Vere loves Billy and has no problem with him in any way but finds where authority has evil it will command. In conclusion Billy was innocent but by failing to see the evil which was upon him he became unable to protect himself from it, being Claggart, who held an authoritarian position higher than him.

Captain Vere was also exposed to evil through Claggart by not stripping him of his rank before he began to provoke Billy which then lead to Vere's decision to put Billy to death. Therefore even the good exposed to evil in a position of authority will sarcoma to evil retaliations. Melville's portrayal of the ignorance of evil is shown once again in Billy Budd. Billy Budd joins the crew of the H. M. S Indomitable and is eventually accused of conspiring to mutiny by Claggart, the conspiring evil of the crew.

Billy strikes a blow to Claggart, killing him. For this crime, he ultimately hangs. By doing this, Melville shows that Billy, like Ahab, is unable to cope with evil and commits evil in return, to lash out at it and eventually become part of it. Unfortunately, Melville would not see the success of Billy Budd. He would die September 28 th, 1891. Billy Budd would be published posthumously in 1924.

Herman Melville's writings set him in a category of his own in American literature. The novel The Bluest Eye by Tony Morrison depicts the numerous encounters of a small girl Pecola with instances of world evil. Ugliness and shame permeate Pecola Breedloves being in every step she takes, every word she breathes, and every thought that her mind conceives. Pecola spends her life seeking acceptance in the eyes of those around her. She believes that if she can just possess the blue eyes that all those white, blond, blue-eyed, Shirley-Temple-looking-girls have, then she will also attain the love and happiness that seems to emanate from every aspect of their being. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison depicts Pecola's life as dark, dreary and as a desperate search for that small detail of beauty that will change the way others see her and grant her that integral spark of existence that incessantly eludes her.

Through Pecola? s interaction with the other characters in the novel, Morrison shows us the destructive force of valuing our self-worth by societal standards of beauty. The author shows that evil can also take a form of cruel societal prejudice. Morrison discloses victimization in many forms throughout The Bluest Eye.

The prejudice that jumps out and victimizes Pecola seems to strengthen the idea that blue eyes will achieve for her the acceptance she seeks. Her teachers fail to acknowledge Pecola in class, she is invisible to them and they tried never to glance at her, and called on her only when everyone was required to respond? ? (45 - 46). The unresponsiveness she encounters from her teachers contributes to her feelings of worthlessness and inferiority. Victimization is also shown through characters like Maureen Peel, who is portrayed as a high-yellow dream child with long brown hair braided into two lynch ropes that hung down her back. (62). Morrison illustrates that she is lynched by the American standards of beauty. Samuels and Hudson-Weems convey that she believes she is superior to Pecola, Claudia and Frieda because America embraces her light skin and sloe green eyes (12).

The fragile hope that she might possess a smidgen of beauty, just as she discovers the beauty in the dandelions, is crushed by Mr. Yakobowskis indifference. She walks out of his store feeling ashamed and ugly and then transfers this view onto the dandelions and no longer finds them pretty; They are ugly. They are weeds (50). Pecola's inability to surpass the identity that society has imposed on her destroys her self-esteem. Her feeble acceptance of society's label causes her feelings of self-hatred and self-doubt.

The truth is that there exists no happiness, no nice mother, and no smiling father for Pecola. The values all the children learn in the Dick and Jane primer have little to do with the reality they are all living. Gibson affirms that one cannot simply learn to read without being subjected to the values engraved in the text. (161). In understanding the meaning of the words, one digests the meaning behind the story. This is where the conditioning begins: ... so [the dominant culture has] imposed upon [black children] whole schemes of value, political, religious, moral, aesthetic, that have little or nothing to do with their actual lives.

They are measured using standards they cannot possibly meet, because of genetics and economicsoand are found wanting (Gibson 161). Gibson also emphasizes that through societies control of images through control of the means of the presentation of imagery, control of magazines, newspapers, window signs? , of current iconography it sends a message of the reality of its values on those not having the resources to forbear the attack. (163). All Pecola hears and observes from the people and images around her is how ugly she is and how she does not fit into the aesthetic values that society has established: They had looked about themselves and saw nothing to contradict the statement; saw, in fact, support for it leaning at them from every billboard, every movie, every glance, yes, they had said, You are right (39). Dantes Inferno is a poem that is not easy to understand. The Inferno opens itself up to many questions, as well as, complicated interpretation. Metaphors and symbolism are found in every line, and to give a complete description of all the interpretations that have been made would be a huge undertaking.

Inferno begins with the hero, conveniently named Dante, lost in a dark wood where no light enters. Naturally, different kinds of evil stalks the main hero during his journey. When he tries to get onto the right path a leopard, then a lion, and last a she-wolf get in his path. He manages to get away from the first two, but cannot shake the she-wolf. St. Lucy sees this all from Heaven and begs St.

Mary to save Dante. St. Lucy sends Virgil to guide Dante through Hell, Purgatory and Heaven because that was the only path by which they could avoid the she-wolf. Inferno deals only with his journey through hell. Dante creates a very orderly and straightforward Hell. His views of Hell were strictly based on the ethics and doctrines of the Church at the time.

Had they not been based on this, he would have been executed as a heretic and his books banned and subsequently burned. Since there was no literature prior to Inferno that dealt with Hell, there was ample room for interpretation, which he used to the fullest. This is where the mythology and metaphysics of the Ancient Greeks comes into play. Dante fills his Hell with a large number of physical features found in the Ancient Greek version of Hell. For example, Dante describes a river system running through Hell, named Acheron, Styx, Phethlegthon and Cocytus. These are all found in the hells described by Plato, Virgil and Homer.

There is much more to Dantes Hell than a mere tour. He goes into more depth by working it out in accordance of the Divine plan. A book cannot be written in the Middle Ages without fitting it into the divine scheme of things. To get this divine plan across, Dante uses an allegorical approach. Dante uses characters to try and get across moral and ethical views. As he travels through the circles of Hell he stops for a bit and talks to some of the damned souls.

Through their speech he attempts to show what not to do in life, so that you may avoid the punishment that befell the damned characters. The characters he choose to profess his moral views were not fictional, far from it in fact. Dante used this opportunity to unleash his bitterness upon those that he believed had done him wrong in life. It seems that the one person that he particularly liked to bring up was Pope Boniface VIII. He was partly responsible for Dantes exile from Florence, and underwent some of the harshest torment in all of Hell.

He shows this in the eighth circle of Hell. This is where corrupt clergymen lie. His punishment is to be stuck head first into a flaming hole in the ground which he shares with other indecent and corrupt popes. Dante stops here and speaks to pope Nicholas III.

Nicholas mistakes Dante for Boniface, who is to take his place and push him further into the hole. He then says to Dante that Boniface is soon to be damned and rotting away in Hell for his sinfulness. Dante shows a very ironic view of the punishment of the punishments in Hell. In most of the circles the punishment found there is very symbolic of the crime itself. Through this Dantes concept of divine judgement is shown. The damned are forced to face the true nature of their sin, though a bit exaggerated, and painfully endure this for eternity.

For example, the punishment for the lustful is that they are destined to be swept and tormented by a harsh wind that blows them around like dry leaves. This punishment is symbolic of the act of lust because people who engage in it allow themselves to be swept away by their sexual pleasures just as easily as the wind sweeps them away for eternity, and punished to endure this forever. In the case of thieves, they run around in a pit filled with venomous snakes. When the snakes bite them their forms turn to ashes then in time they gain their form only be bitten over and over again. The question is though, how does this relate to the act of stealing? A thief steals from people what is rightfully theirs without their permission.

The thieves are now placed in the place of the victim, but instead of losing possessions they loose their physical form over and over again. Looking solely at Dantes Inferno we see a wrathful and hateful God, which goes against our Christian teachings of an all loving God. The message of Inferno was not to pinpoint evil souls, but to recognize that they put themselves in that position, and that God was only doing what had to be done, giving the reader the message that he should not try to damn himself as they did, but instead to rise to spiritual grace. Through the writings presented above, the authors bring forth the enigma of the origin of evil and its power over the innocent. Still the ancient question remains: how is evil created and what causes men to pursue evil, and ultimately, how is it destroyed?

Perhaps the only ones who could comprehend and explain this to the reader are excellent writers and poets who create for the sake of people. Bibliography: Herman Melville. Billy Budd. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1979. Morrison, Tony.

The Bluest Eye. New York: Routledge, 1964. Dante Alighieri. The Divine Comedy. London: Penguin Classics, 1984.


Free research essays on topics related to: good and evil, standards of beauty, billy budd, captain vere, dantes inferno

Research essay sample on Good And Evil Standards Of Beauty

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