López Machado, Liria 1

Liria López Machado

Ms. Rapuano

English 20-1

3 October 2022

Good and Evil: 2 Sides of the Same Coin

“The line between good and evil is permeable and almost anyone can be induced to cross it when

pressured by situational forces.”. These are Phillip Zimbardo words, an American psychologist

and a professor emeritus at Stanford University.

The line that divides good and evil has been discussed a lot all over human history: religions,

dogmas, beliefs, cults, morals, and philosophies. Hundreds of stances have existed within this.

However, regardless of what the people think. It's been shown that human beings can be both

charitable and kind, ready to help everyone no matter what. While at other times cruel and

bloodthirsty, ready to destroy everything and everyone to achieve their objectives.

Human beings have done beautiful and magnificent things over thousands of years, but we have

also done deplorable and horrendous things. The human being capable of being good or evil is an

irrefutable fact, both World Wars and how close we are to a new one. The holocaust, the

massacres and conquests of kingdoms and empires in the past and present. However we question,

can someone good or evil act like the opposite? Can we cross that line at our will? Can we be

good and evil at the same time? Or are we relegated to our borned nature forever?
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The only thing that prevents humans from acting wrongly is our morals. Good and evil concepts

were invented by humanity millennia ago, and they are defined by what most people consider

correct and incorrect. Taking this into account, it’s easy to deduce that everyone could cross that

line at will. The only thing that prevents us from doing it is the education and the environment

we grow up in. Even then, our intelligence allows us to have our own thoughts and ideas, almost

always influenced by other people. Knowing this, it’s obvious that if we didn’t have these things

or if we forgot them, it just wouldn’t exist for us. In the novel of William Golding ‘The Lord of

the Flies’ we can see some evidence of this, but the most important could be one with a littlun,

“Ralph peered at the child in the twilight. ‘Now tell us. What’s your name?’ ‘Percival Wemys

Madison, The Vicarage, Harcourt St. Anthony, Hants, telephone, telephone, tele—’ [...]. Other

boys were appearing now, tiny tots some of them, brown, with the distended bellies of small

savages. One of them came close to the officer and looked up. ‘I’m, I’m—’ But there was no

more to come. Percival Wemys Madison sought in his head for an incantation that had faded

clean away.” (Yb; ch. 5,12; p. 108,247). These 2 quotes are dialogues of the same character, the

first one in chapter 5, and the second one in chapter 12. When the first one is said, the kids have

been in the island for some days, their civilization is still new and up. In the second one, they

have been on the island for some months and their civilization doesn’t exist anymore. That kid

decides to join Jack’s team, the savage team, he threw away the idea of living in a civilization

and with it, his moral, identity and education. It was just once he did that, that he started acting

like a savage, no matter what he was doing whether it was good or not.
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Another big incentive for us to cross that subjective line is the necessity of survival. “‘You know

how to hunt.’ ‘Animals…’ ‘It’s no difference, Katniss’ ‘There’s 24 of us, Gale. Only one comes

out.’ ‘Yeah, and it’s gonna be you’” (The Hunger Games, min 19.21).

In this conversation between Katniss and Gale in the first film of ‘The Hunger Games’, Katniss

says she never killed humans or that she’s not sure about being able to do it. She ends up having

to do it just to survive the hell she’s in. We humans are the most intelligent living beings on the

planet, and it’s thanks to that intelligence that we can appreciate the beauty of being alive. Even

in our moments of greatest suffering, we maintain our will to live will. Much of this suffering is

because of the knowledge of an insured future death and not knowing when it will happen.

Nevertheless, part of that living will come from our very far past. Since no matter how much we

evolve we keep being animals. Instinct is too much ingrained in us, to me eliminated just for a

few thousand years of evolution. In ‘The Lord of the Flies’, in the last chapter. Ralph is running

for his life from the kids, “Ralph fumbled to hold his spear so that it was point foremost; and

now he saw that the stick was sharpened at both ends. [...] The stake was in his hands, the stake

sharpened at both ends, the stake that vibrated so widely, that grew long, short, light, heavy, light

again. [...] Ralph screamed, a scream of fright and anger and desperation. His legs straightened,

the screams became continuous and foaming. He shot forward, burst the thicket, was in the open

screaming, snarling, bloody. He swung the stake and the savage tumbled over; but there were

others coming towards him, [...] The tears began to flow and sobs shook him. He gave himself up

to them now for the first time on the island; great, shuddering spasms of grief that seemed to

wrench his whole body. His voice rose under the black smoke before the burning wreckage of

the island; and infected by that emotion, the other little boys began to shake and sob too. And in

the middle of them, with filthy body, matted hair, and unwiped nose, Ralph wept for the end of
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innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called

Piggy.” (Yb; ch. 12; p. 244,245,248) Even though throughout the novel he hesitates about

hunting or using a spear, even more on another human, being the only other moment in which he

uses one during the dance moments before Simos’s death. Our survival instinct and our

selfishness for the desire to live despite everything are one of the biggest incentives humans can

have to cross that line between good and evil, because when you are on the verge of death. Wha

do the rest of the things matter?

Other big reasons to change our behavior is our selfishness, fear and love. Humans are the most

selfish living beings, we appreciate what we have and we refuse to let it go until we have no

other option. Many times without caring what we have to do to keep it. Through education and

morals we learn as we grow up. The values of the society in which we live and the general

environment in our lives do a lot to control this aspect of us. Nowadays it is frowned upon in

most civilizations, and one of the most important things for us is to fit in with other people.

Nevertheless, if we are in the correct situation, we can allow ourselves to accomplish our goals.

We won’t hesitate to keep what we consider ours. All human wars throughout history have been

caused by the selfishness and ambition of humans. The will of being powerful, having

territories, money, fame… In the novel ‘The Lord of the Flies’ we can see how the selfishness of

the kids leads them to give up on the civilization they built up and join Jack so they could get

meat and never work again, “‘Never get it done.’ He flung himself down at Jack’s feet. Simon

remained, looking out of the hole in the shelter. Once down, Ralph explained. ‘Been working for

days now. And look!’ Two shelters were in position, but shaky. This one was a ruin. ‘And they

keep running off. You remember the meeting? How everyone was going to work hard until the
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shelters were finished?’ ‘Except me and my hunters—’ ‘Except the hunters. Well, the littluns

are—’ He gesticulated, sought for a word. ‘They’re hopeless. The older ones aren’t much better.

D’you see? All day I’ve been working with Simon. No one else. They’re bathing, or eating, or

playing.’” (Yb; ch. 3; p. 64). We also see this selfishness in Jack, throwing away the civilization

they built and his upcoming friendship with Ralph just to accomplish his will of killing a pig,

which turned out to be an obsession.

On the other hand, we can see the influence of fear mostly when the beast appears in the story,

changing and adjusting their decisions because of the fear they have of it. It’s because of this fear

that they don’t hesitate in trying to kill it when they have the chance, even the most reluctant of

them. This doesn’t end as they wanted though, since they end up killing Simon. As much as the

fear can open your eyes to options you never considered before, it can also blind you from the

reality of what is happening and the actions you are performing. Another sample about the fear

changing us is again in the last chapter with Ralph, running away and hiding from the other kids,

panicking and questioning all his decisions that led him there because of the fear he’s feeling of

being killed. He is ready to stab and kill anyone.

We are capable of doing everything if the situation and the options are adequate. We are selfish

and ambitious. We love living and we are afraid to death and the only thing that keeps us from

acting as we want is what society will say of us and our morals, built up out of what society

thinks is ‘good’ or ‘bad’. Knowing this, and with all the evidence we have throughout human

history, it is evident that people can be good and evil, crossing that line at will.
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Reference List
Philip Zimbardo