The modern world commonly understands suffering as something awful that has happened to them from external forces. When a reader then sees the atrocities that Maldoror takes pleasure in doing to others, it becomes a way for the average person to cast blame onto people like him for causing their tribulations. Take, for instance, that example of Maldoror luring the innocent family into a trap by tempting them with their wildest desires. Likewise, a modern person may very well be enticed into joining another who attracts them and if it leads into a worse situation then they blame their ruin on the external evils. On the contrary, a modern individual may refuse the external evils, much like the poor family did, and still have suffering come
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Accordingly, Lautreamont proposes a applicable character that appears to do both evil and have evil done upon him. The modern era recognizes that they can relate to the idea that evil is subjective and a person can be both moral and immoral. While wrongdoing can be objective and punished directly, there is also an underlying notion that evil is an unavoidable part of daily life. Lautreamont shows Maldoror contemplating a situation in which he imagines two friends, Reginald and Elsseneur. The first friend, Reginald, gets injured when they are swimming and instead of being a virtuous person Maldoror abandons his friend, thus showing an innate evil personality trait. Conversely, Maldoror seeks a new friend, Elsseneur, in which he thinks to himself that he would, “lavish on him who was to become your second victim the affection you had not been able to show to the first. A vain hope; character does not change from one day to the next” (Lautreamont 207). While Maldoror hopes of being an improved friend to Elsseneur, he instead experiences Elsseneur’s attempt to murder him during a walk they had together. This may be an extreme example of a man doing evil to one person only to experience evil back onto himself by another person; however, it serves the readers in this day and age by making evil seem more fluid in its definition than strict. Currently,
Accordingly, Lautreamont proposes a applicable character that appears to do both evil and have evil done upon him. The modern era recognizes that they can relate to the idea that evil is subjective and a person can be both moral and immoral. While wrongdoing can be objective and punished directly, there is also an underlying notion that evil is an unavoidable part of daily life. Lautreamont shows Maldoror contemplating a situation in which he imagines two friends, Reginald and Elsseneur. The first friend, Reginald, gets injured when they are swimming and instead of being a virtuous person Maldoror abandons his friend, thus showing an innate evil personality trait. Conversely, Maldoror seeks a new friend, Elsseneur, in which he thinks to himself that he would, “lavish on him who was to become your second victim the affection you had not been able to show to the first. A vain hope; character does not change from one day to the next” (Lautreamont 207). While Maldoror hopes of being an improved friend to Elsseneur, he instead experiences Elsseneur’s attempt to murder him during a walk they had together. This may be an extreme example of a man doing evil to one person only to experience evil back onto himself by another person; however, it serves the readers in this day and age by making evil seem more fluid in its definition than strict. Currently,