Gordon Grice: The Evil Nature Of The World

Gordon Grice, an essayist and writer, is caught in a web that is the mystery of the black widow. He himself has been enamored by the widow’s venom, in particular, and how it seems to be more powerful than need be. He reflects on killing widows with his mother and the gravity his mother held while doing so. Putting the powerful venom of the widow in perspective, Grice explains how there is no need for the deathly venom yet it still exists, and he relates this to the evil of the world, how purposeless it is. However, within his work he remains in awe of the widow, keeping the tone mystic but informative. Through all of this, he wants the reader to understand that not everything has a purpose, especially the inherent evil nature of the world …show more content…
His first and most prominent mode was exemplification of the black widow. This becomes apparent through the structuring of his paragraphs, usually making a claim in the topic sentence and giving first-hand examples of the claim. He states that “[m]any widows will eat as much as possible” and then gives his example of having an “aggressive female… [that] spent several hours subduing [a cockroach], and three days consuming it” (para. 5). His example of the voraciousness of the widow depicts the evil that the widow displays, and he implements the idea that the widow causes more destruction than necessary. The spider does not need to hunt large cockroaches, but yet it gruesomely kills the cockroach over a long period of time. He also uses description to offer his idea of purposeless evil. When describing the killing process of the widow, he says that the widow “delivers more bites, injecting substances that liquefy the organs” (para. 3). He does not see the need for this process, and the grotesque nature of the widow is unnecessary. Furthermore, the narrative aspect shows the inane hatred in humans for the widow, as he uses a story about his mother to advance his point. He says that she spoke in the “hushed voice she used for discussing religion or sex” (para. 7). Grice points out this detail to show how the widow is a serious …show more content…
He describes the widow as a horrible spider that “[is] black; avoids the light; is a voracious carnivore” (para. 10), which produces a thought within the reader’s mind of an innate fear of the unknown. His imagery of the widow adds to the unknown reason of the existence of it, pointing out how different and unattractive the widow itself is. This allows him to make the reader feel the strangeness of the widow, and how it stands out among the horrors of the insect world. Within his last paragraph he includes his bigger purpose of the essay through the tone. He talks about how “no idea of the cosmos as elegant design accounts for the widow. No idea of a benevolent God is comfortable in a world with the widow” (para. 15). He introduces a mysterious tone to this paragraph, introducing theology into his essay, and yet he still manages to be informative throughout the previous parts of the essay. Through his modes, literary devices, and diction, Grice is able to express his idea that the world possesses a malicious, unexplainable evil, and he uses the example of the black widow for this. His idea of evil can be examined deeper as well, not only searching for the reasons behind evil, but searching for the reasons behind good in the world. Grice tries to explain the reason behind evil, so why not the reason behind good as well? After all, the presence of good could not