Living through an event as treacherous as World War Two, or as devastating as the Great Depression is profoundly life changing. “Experiences shape the brain, but the brain shapes the way we view experiences, too,” anthropologist and human behavior researcher Helen Fisher hypothesizes. John Steinbeck and William Golding’s experiences in the midst of tumultuous times in history shape the distinct message each attempts to convey throughout their most famous works; however, their views differ significantly. While William Golding reiterates humanity’s inherent evil with absolute conviction, Steinbeck analyzes the dark and evil aspects of society, to which he attributes any perceived evil. The worlds both authors create are the perfect conditions
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In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, Simon, the symbolic Christ figure character, detects the beast inside him and other people. At the conclusion of this particular scene from Lord of the Flies, Golding states, “His gaze was held by that ancient, inescapable recognition”(Golding 138). Simon recognizes the presence of evil within humanity by conversing with the evil piece of his psyche, thus supporting the theory that society obscures evil and the idea that the “darkness of a man’s heart” reveals itself once people are taken out of their acclimatized environments, as is the case with the boys. Steinbeck, on the other hand, envisions society as a dark, ugly entity designed to kill dreams and reveal human evil. In Of Mice and Men, after the figurative killing of George’s dream, Steinbeck makes the following statement, “You hadda, George. I swear you hadda”(Steinbeck 107). Steinbeck offers this quote as a demonstration of the standards imposed by society that force George to choose killing Lennie and his dreams as the more humane and less evil option. The way Steinbeck ends Of Mice and Men conveys his general aversion towards the state of …show more content…
However, their ideas on the order in which good and evil occur vary, supporting their respective microcosms. Subtle touches of irony in each novel lead to the conclusion that evils are concomitant with good, and one cannot exist without the other. For example, near the end of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, a messy fire intended to kill brings salvation, in the form of a deus ex machina, and saves them all. The irony is that evil brings good, similar to Golding’s experience, in which war brought peace. Steinbeck, on the other hand, illustrates evil as a follower of good. In his novel, The Grapes of Wrath, the killing of Casey is the ultimate example of good intentions gone askew. The group of workers unknowingly kill Casey, a man working on their behalf, because they believe he works against them, even after he states, “You fellas don’ know what you’re doin’. You’re helpin’ to starve kids” (Steinbeck 527). Steinbeck postulates that evil comes from good, if and only if society forces its escape, much like the men struggling to feed their families left with no choice but to kill. For both Steinbeck and Golding, the line separating good and evil fluctuates, and thus there is no one true genesis of human
In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, Simon, the symbolic Christ figure character, detects the beast inside him and other people. At the conclusion of this particular scene from Lord of the Flies, Golding states, “His gaze was held by that ancient, inescapable recognition”(Golding 138). Simon recognizes the presence of evil within humanity by conversing with the evil piece of his psyche, thus supporting the theory that society obscures evil and the idea that the “darkness of a man’s heart” reveals itself once people are taken out of their acclimatized environments, as is the case with the boys. Steinbeck, on the other hand, envisions society as a dark, ugly entity designed to kill dreams and reveal human evil. In Of Mice and Men, after the figurative killing of George’s dream, Steinbeck makes the following statement, “You hadda, George. I swear you hadda”(Steinbeck 107). Steinbeck offers this quote as a demonstration of the standards imposed by society that force George to choose killing Lennie and his dreams as the more humane and less evil option. The way Steinbeck ends Of Mice and Men conveys his general aversion towards the state of …show more content…
However, their ideas on the order in which good and evil occur vary, supporting their respective microcosms. Subtle touches of irony in each novel lead to the conclusion that evils are concomitant with good, and one cannot exist without the other. For example, near the end of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, a messy fire intended to kill brings salvation, in the form of a deus ex machina, and saves them all. The irony is that evil brings good, similar to Golding’s experience, in which war brought peace. Steinbeck, on the other hand, illustrates evil as a follower of good. In his novel, The Grapes of Wrath, the killing of Casey is the ultimate example of good intentions gone askew. The group of workers unknowingly kill Casey, a man working on their behalf, because they believe he works against them, even after he states, “You fellas don’ know what you’re doin’. You’re helpin’ to starve kids” (Steinbeck 527). Steinbeck postulates that evil comes from good, if and only if society forces its escape, much like the men struggling to feed their families left with no choice but to kill. For both Steinbeck and Golding, the line separating good and evil fluctuates, and thus there is no one true genesis of human