These are not considered evil until he caves into the temptation of power (Gimelli Martin 165). His weakness is shown when he makes the decision to murder King Duncan and secures the position as king. He even goes as far to murder his friend, Banquo, because he feels uneasy about his suspicions (182-183). At this point in the story he is even comparable to Satan, “Like Satan, Macbeth becomes the chief equivocator in his own hell, unwittingly uttering objective truths to his subjects even while telling subjective lies.” (183).
Power affects these two men in different ways, Jack starts to become his true self whereas Macbeth starts to hallucinate and go insane. This relates to the point of view of the authors: William Golding believes people are inherently evil whereas William Shakespeare believes people are inherently good. The question is, who is more evil Jack or Macbeth? Both Jack and Macbeth are ambitious and hungry for power. Jack is hungry for power from the beginning.
As his mind is clouded by ambition, Thyestes does not think of his brother’s feelings and the repercussions of his crimes. His desire for rule has caused Thyestes to manipulate Atreus’ wife into helping him take down his brother. ‘My wife has he debauched, my kingdom stolen’ (1917, 222). As a result, Atreus turns evil to gain revenge and justice for his brother’s actions. The ‘evil in the ruler’ comes out of Atreus when he gains revenge by brutally murdering his brother’s two sons, cutting them up and serving them to Thyestes in an act of cannibalism and a form of sacrifice.
In The Crucible John Proctor goes to his death falsely being a witch, but he redeems and gains his esteem by confessing he committed adultery. Proctor chooses death over having a bad reputation and perceives his social standing. “How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!”
The Cask of Amontillado - A Symbolic Character Analysis Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” is a grim revenge story escalated by a minor transgression taken unconventionally by the main character. “The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge” - Montresor. Evidently, Montresor’s reaction to being insulted is surreal and play into his personality as the story unfolds. Montresor believes the only way to right such an offence is to kill his own friend. However, such a brash action is not villainized within the context of “The Cask of Amontillado” instead it is used to explore the way that Montresor thinks as an individual.
William Shakespeare portrays Claudius as a devious, greedy, and conniving villain who commits many sins throughout the play. One of the first things we learn is that he murders his own brother, the King of Denmark, by poisoning him so that he can instead become the King of Denmark. He takes this act of evil even further by seducing his sister-in-law,
The murders that Macbeth committed not only showed his brutality and ruthlessness but it also showed how twisted is soul is. These murders indicate the darkness of Macbeth because he not only kills the king, but he kills those who love and respect him. It could also be because of how selfish and corrupt Macbeth became from the thirst of power that could never be quenched. Once becoming the Thane of Cawdor, Macbeth enjoyed having a title to his name. Sadly, this title was not enough for him so Macbeth’s imagination had the “witches” prophecy be that Macbeth would become the Thane of Cawdor (which he already knew) and a king.
Much like his other works, William Shakespeare subtly reflects the era’s social issues in Hamlet, a play about the eponymous prince of Denmark who discovers that his father’s untimely death was a murder. Throughout the play, religious anxiety plays a major role in the characters’ personal decisions. In Hamlet, the eponymous protagonist fabricates insanity to avenge his deceased father, however his goals are blocked by his own inner religious turmoil and thereby illustrating the theme of religion. The Danish court is full of deceit and immorality, from King Claudius’ murder of his brother to Queen Gertrude’s incestuous marriage.
For Macbeth, he is motive by the fulfill of the prophecies, which facilitate the growth of ambition. “He will be fooled into thinking he is greater than fate, he will mock death, and he will think he is above wisdom, grace, and fear.” (Crowther.3.5.2). As Hecate, the head of the witches suggests, the prophecies are made to fool Macbeth and lead him into the completely wicked way of killing people in order to satisfy his intrigued ambition and paranoid thoughts. In other words, the deterioration of Macbeth’s character and all the immoral practice done by Macbeth and her wife predominantly provoked by the prophecies, which in fact, only contains one piece of real information, possession of The Thane of Cawdor by Macbeth.
Furthermore, Hamlet feels compelled by both Heaven and Hell because he feels as if his father came down asking for vengeance for his own death even though Hamlet is unable to deliver. Though Hamlet thought about killing Claudius immediately, he also thinks of the negative consequences of revenge rather than the positive ones which puts him at a standstill, “cursing like the whore he is”. As the play progresses through the plot, Hamlet experiences an epiphany after observing Fortinbras, expressing, “Why yet I live to say “this thing's to do”, / Sith
In the story ¨The Cask of Amontillado¨ by Edgar Allan Poe is a powerful story about revenge that takes readers into the mind of a murderer. Montresor is a perfect example of an unreliable narrator because he was capable of burying Fortunato into a vault. He vows revenge on Fortunato for an insult. He can’t be trusted, even if he’d be lying about Fortunato’s death. Fortunato´s name means ¨fortunate¨ which in reality, he didn 't really turn out that way.
The main character of The Crucible, John Proctor is someone who possesses all the necessity traits that classify a tragic hero. Not only is his downfall in the book initiated by his human flaw, but he also captures the sympathy from the readers. Even though John Proctor’s intentions are good and truthful through out the book, in the beginning we discover that he has a significant secret. He is guilty of committing the sin of adultery with his young servant, Abigail Williams. His sick wife Elizabeth learned of his infidelity and forgave him, but Abigail was in love with John and tries to kill Elizabeth by engaging in witchcraft with a few other girls in Salem.
“The descent to hades is the same from every place” said the ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras. Nowhere is that sentiment anywhere better mirrored than in C.S. Lewis’ book “The Screwtape Letters,” which consists of a series of letters written by an elder demon (the title character) to a junior devil advising him about how to tempt souls to hell; he speaks often of the “time-tested” ways of seducing lost souls. Moreover though, the work illustrates the society of the hell in which the demons dwell as an eternal power struggle not only with God but also with each other; Screwtape himself lays out his worldview as that “all selves are by their nature in competition.” The demonic struggle to dominate and control others is the modus vivendi
Why is it that cheating in a relationship was first thought of? Cheating is immoral because it involves breaking our word, it almost always involves lying. It's as if we're breaking a promise and commitment to our partner. The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne during the romanticism period. Takes place in the 1600's where puritans are residing in a village and a woman called Hester Prynne commits a serious crime, named adultery.
The Evil Within “All things truly wicked start from innocence,” Ernest Hemingway, (A Movable Feast.) The nature of evil lies within all human beings whether they realize it or not. Both Lord of the Flies and A Long Way Gone have main characters who struggle with the temptation of evil, and eventually give in to their dark side. Under harsh circumstances, the evil within all people comes out as an attempt to adapt to their environment. Authority figures are one of the major components affecting the development of evil within their followers.