Megan Hinojos
Dr. Grinder
American Novel
1 December 2015
Corruption of the Human Race As one considers the past and present world, countless acts of violence, death, and sadness are revealed. Throughout existence, the human race has participated in destructive ways that in some instances, eliminate all hope for goodness. Countries go to war, individuals kill in the name of revenge, hatred, jealousy, and personal achievement. At times the brutality and sin displayed by human beings is overwhelming, making the world seem resistant to any form of goodness. In addition to the horrific actions displayed by humans, the world is prone to natural disasters. Hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and countless other catastrophes leave human life and
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Human beings are formed by both the Demiurgos and the true god. For the most part, humans are unable to identify the goodness within themselves or the “Divine Spark” which is instilled by the true god. The false creator and his Archons work to resist human acknowledgment of their divine elements. Human superficiality lessens one’s divine spark and further imprisons them to Earth. There are some beings who are able to recognize their divinity and contain pnuema or elements of the true spirit which aid their release from Earth after death. (Filoramo, Mundik, Pétrement)
Because of Earth’s corrupted state, Gnostics justify the fact that the world is prone to suffering and endless violence due to human spiritual deficiency and immorality. This deficiency and corruption is what leads to greed, violence, and death which are all present within the novel. McCarthy creates a vicious world of suffering through the actions of Glanton and his gang. Taking place after the Mexican-American War, Glanton leads his men into the newly gained land with the purpose of massacring the native Apache people. The violence performed by the gang is unimaginable, “the dead lay with their peeled skulls like polyps bluely wet or luminescent melons cooling on some mesa of the moon” (174). In this reality all hope is lost. The weak are massacred and the strong live on the kill another day. While talking to the gang of men the judge suggests, “Moral law is an invention of mankind for the
The issue of evil in the world raises questions with which everyone wrestles. Pain and suffering come into everyone’s life to some degree or another. Trying to find meaning and purpose in the midst of suffering, whether our own or someone else’s, is difficult regardless of what worldview one holds. How individuals and societies deal with this issue will have important implications for those individuals as well as to the whole of society.
In Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy describes a lawless and godless group of men ordained to cleanse the West of lesser people. This group wanders through the West leaving a trail of slaughtered people in their trail. The emptiness and ruthlessness of their hearts is reflected in the harsh and unforgiving landscape. McCarthy uses reoccurring themes of war, religion, and dance to paint a graphic picture of the savageness of life in the West.
These two worlds Collins and McCarthy created where killing is a form of entertainment and/or necessity for one’s survival, one may assume that expressing any form of humanity is a sign of weakness. Moreover, because the main characters of both novels
There is a lot of evil in the world, and much of it happens unexplainably. In the history of life on Earth bad things have happened and evil has caused problems. In relation to some world
Filled with a plethora of themes and convictions, Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men excels in its endeavor to maintain the reader’s mind racing from cover to cover. The setting is the Texas-Mexico boarder; the story embodying a modernized western-themed Greek tragedy filled with drug runners and automatic weapons. Llewelyn Moss, a Vietnam veteran, finds himself on the run from forces that seem to be an instrument of karmic consequence. While on the run, Llewelyn is given the opportunity to end the madness that has arisen so immediately in his life. But he doesn’t. Instead he braves on, defying his own advice, and persistent on luck, only leaving him a misfortunate ending. To fully recognize the circumstance the novel
Many people theorize that this bleak, dark story may not be what it appears on the surface. Many people believe that the story represents something much more. In 2006, McCarthy sat down for a rare interview with Oprah Winfrey. In that interview, McCarthy described the novel as a love story to his son. While this is straight from the author’s mouth, this has not stopped many readers from theorizing what McCarthy was trying to convey in his dystopian novel.The following is one of those theories for your consideration.
We all grew up with tales of dragons and beasts, banished by knights and kings. Stories of righteousness against hellfire in a most innocent way. As we grow older we come to believe that along with our days of youth, we leave behind Disney tales of “good vs. evil”, and the proper notion of an uncomplicated “right or wrong” narrative becomes nothing more than an imprint of a faded memory of what defined the world. In a perfect world, that perspective would ring as gospel amongst the people of the world, and maybe then, and only then, would the world be “perfect”. Though many long for this sort of simplicity in the universe, this is simply not how the world is. Through our storytelling, and our own psychological necessity for an affixed dichotomy
Good and evil are concocted differently in every imagination. To some, evil is the most appalling sins, including such heinous acts such as murder, rape, distortion, or betrayal. To others, evil might be something so simple as indecisiveness, extravagance, or vain glory. Goodness is ambiguous to mankind as well because one man might define goodness as the ordinary man living a free life, yet another might conclude that true goodness is obtainable only through a perfect, honorable lifestyle, completely abstaining from worldly endeavors. One’s attitude at good and evil will predetermine their values, actions, and points of interest. Whether life is spent pursuing heavenly goals or the applying oneself to his or her life, their
Cormac McCarthy’s novel, No Country for Old Men, enlightens the life of Llewellyn Moss, a welder and Vietnam veteran, who happens to stumble upon several murdered bodies, a sufficient supply of cocaine, and two million dollars of cartel drug money. Moss decides to seize the money and consequently sets off a chase for his life against the old hand sheriff Ed Tom Bell and hired psychopathic killer Anton Chigurh. However, McCarthy essentially exploits Moss’ and Chigurh’s escapade only as a subplot and ultimately conveys a deeper meaning. The novelist heavily relies on Bell’s failure to reconcile his morals of the approach crime used to take years before. Through analyzing the characters, moral relativism, and
For ages, people have been debating the idea of human morality and whether or not at its core humanity is good or bad. This philosophy is explored in Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Road. The road is the story of a man and boy living in a post-apocalyptic world. Some cataclysmic event has crippled Earth’s natural ecosystem, leaving the skies engulfed in ash and the ground devoid of much life. The duo aim to journey south as a way to escape being frozen to death in the oncoming winter. During their journey, the boy and man come across different people and places that give them a better understand of what humanity has become and where they stand on that spectrum. Throughout The Road, McCarthy revisits the idea of being the “good guy” when there is no longer a need to, “carrying the fire” as it’s detailed in the book. The dichotomy between the boy’s moral conscience and the man’s selfish ideals helps develop McCarthy’s idea of humanity losing its selflessness in the face of danger.
The intentions of actions help decide whether it is morally good or evil. The man has many more blurred moral situations than the boy throughout the novel. One example of this is when he kills the “roadrat”(35), out of self-defense for his son. The man assures the boy “[they] are still the good guys”(39) even after he killed the man, because his initial intent was not to harm him. McCarthy demonstrates the idea that good gets evil and evil gets evil with the outcome of the “roadrat”. He refuses not to harm the boy and man and therefore gets killed. Although this exact situation is not the basis of the norm morality in modern society, it still helps demonstrate the triumph of good. In a regular world this intention of good can be applied to simple things, such as; a small lie in order to protect others. The novel helps demonstrate principles by using the extremes. In an apocalyptic
The flaws of human nature are many, but one of the biggest is the gullibility, especially in the presence of the supernatural. It is often easy to think that the thoughts or actions of an individual are of their own doing. It is even easier to assume that the range of the mind falls between good and evil. But society is not quite clear and even in fiction, there is always something motivating an action that lingers in the back of the mind of any character. The supernatural in particular is known for its ability to push people to extremes and alter their perception drastically. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, it is easy to assume the blind ambition that brews within Macbeth and his wife or the guilt that plagues them following their actions is the biggest motivator. But that is just the surface of the complexity interlaced into this tragedy. Dig further, and it becomes clear that these emotions were not always prevalent in the characters, but were instead prompted by a force so powerful, it toyed with fate and provoked deception until the end; it was the supernatural that fueled the emotions and actions that take up much of the play.
Ahmad N. (2002). Corruption and Government Regulations : An Empirical Analysis. The Bangladesh Development Studies , Vol. 28, No. 4 pp. 29-51.
The concept of human nature has been questioned numerous times throughout history. Debates on the issue have come and gone, but the underlying question still remains on the mind of societies across the globe: Are humans generally filled with an innate sense of goodness and light or are we debase creatures at heart continuously tainted with the stains of vice? Though some texts in literature would prefer to prattle on about the exclusive and rewarding wonders that being a human provides, others tend to focus on humanity’s capacity for corruption and blatant savagery. The texts Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, and an A Satire against Reason and Mankind by Rochester are quick to showcase the corruption that plagues the English human nature while displaying society’s role in masking this corruption with a perpetuating sense of nationalism and egotism.
It is our desire as humans to be good, sure there a couple of that are jerks thrown in there, but that inevitable. Those who actually do good will go on to be admired by others, they will be seen as heroes, the ones who were raised right, they will be praised. Sure most people want to be good. But what about those who don’t ? What if the bad people had every intention of being bad and causing pain. What if the bad people think that what they’re doing is okay because they were never cared about enough to be taught otherwise. I have stayed up countless nights thinking about what a bad person could be doing to someone at that exact moment. Who is being raped? Who is being beaten? Who is being starved? Who is being murdered? All questions that pass through my mind as I lie sleepless in a quiet dark room that seeks peace of mind and lead me to the conclusion that we are truly born with luck. As a matter of fact we are so lucky that most people kill to be in our positions. If you truly think about it you will realize that we’re all lucky we are to be living the lives that we’re living, or to even be alive at all. The fact that we can drop dead at any second if truly astonishing and I wish I could say that no one in my close family has experienced any of that pain, I wish because someone really close to me already has, my mother.