Rough Draft of Comparison Essay: Theatre of Good and Evil

The twisted and manipulative minds of individuals bring society to a stir. Authors John Connolly and Arthur Miller through their respective works The Book of Lost Things and The Crucible use culture and social factors to help portray and develop characters according to good and evil. Cultural and social factors help deprive the goodness of several characters, leaving the protagonist and state in a mist of confusion.

Lucifer known as the devil plays a significant role as a reference to tempter of mankind. Depending on the impact of the shedding may be, the roles of The Crooked Man, and Abigail Williams are both portrayed as the chief spirit of evil or the devil. The Crooked Man, whom desires every matter for himself, through his selfish and manipulative works, endeavours to corrupt the protagonist mind, David. Crooked Man tries to achieve this throughout the novel in such way so that David can build up hatred towards his newborn step brother, Georgie, whom had been causing conflict ever since his arrival, so that David would sell his soul to The Crooked Man (devil). The persuasiveness of The Crooked Man is the same as how the devil would take an individuals soul, granting, promising and tempering mankind, by all means, using any force; mentally and physically. It is shown throughout the novel, that The Crooked Man mentally attacks David, after his mother’s dead, sparking confusion and loneliness in David’s life. In the play, Abigail Williams and her friends are seen as dancing, drinking chicken blood, and chanting spells, all worshiping black magic to Lucifer (the devil) which is forbidden in their strictly followed Christian community. After being caught, Abigail Williams influences the high Christian morale community into believing that it was the entire devils fault, freighting the girls and corrupting society. Abigail Williams uses black magic for her own desires as she wants John Proctor, as she cast a spell to kill his wife, Elizabeth Proctor.

John Connolly and the producer of the play, Nicholas Hytner, through their works of art, do not directly distinguish the evil being referenced to the devil. Reading and viewing the novel and play in depth, the audience slowly starts to understand the works that show the characters of the evil being showed through The Crooked Man, and Abigail Williams. Therefore, the evil isn’t introduced as evil at first, but further on the development, the audience will start to understand who are evil and good. Events that build up in the The Book of Lost Things, The Crooked Man is viewed as an outsider, who follows David on his journey to escape the dilemma he is trapped in, and helps David on several obstacles facing death. The handiness and kindness of The Crooked Man are only motives so that he can eventually get what he wants, thus making The Crooked Man act in a certain way. Abigail Williams through her attitude and mentality display her two sides of evil and goodness. Her goodness is shown as her trying to get the society understand that the devil has been playing with the girls mind, and her evil is shown through varies events such as threatening the girls if they tell what they did in the forest and blaming the Barbados slave, Tituba for being possessed by the devil. In both the novel and play, costumes and attires don’t give away the characters personality, but the lighting and setting, displays some factor. Where the Crooked Man is seen and talked about, are at the times of dusk, and night, where David at first gets a glimpse of this small dark figure watching him through his window. The description and the setting where he The Crooked Man is seen, gives a show case of his ideology.


In the play The Crucible, Arthur Miller based it on the past events that occurred in 1622 Massachusetts, where it was known as the Salem Witch Trials. This setting through the respective lightings foreshadows the play according to the Salem Witch Trials. The Salem Witch Trials were country court trials to prosecute people accused of witchcraft, and in the play, several cast members throughout society are accused of witch crafting and possessed by the devil. The ones that practise black magic, are shown as evil, as they have a motive to kill or want something, hence practising black magic will get them what they desire. Abigail Williams tries to use the setting of the Christian believed community to bring fear and anxiety for her advantage, as the town fears this type of disturbance. Lighting is incorporated where the practice of black magic was taken place at a dark, night forest. The Book of Lost Things, the setting of darkness prevails as a time of evilness, where the protagonist is always being bombarded with obstacles facing evil.

In the novel and play, the culture and social factors help develop the characters according to good and evil. Depending on the circumstances, the views upon evil can be discovered later on, as at the ending of both the play and novel, the audience discovers what characters are evil and which are good.

Good vs. Evil: How does film deal with these questions?

Films relatively deal with the theme of good vs. evil, differently depending on whom the movie is intended for. Again, the audience, whom novels or films are made for, affects the complete storyline and the theme regarding good vs. evil. Depending on the target audience, the good and evil characters are often compared by the setting, lighting, and special effects in the film. The author or director may use special colours, or effects to make one side stand and make obvious.
Usually evil is represented by a much larger force, darker setting, corrupt people, and ugly faced, while on the other hand the good is represented by more lighting, clearer image, more focused, handsome, beautiful and basically the opposite of evil.

Even though in many of these graphical novels these so called heroes sometimes use violence as a mean to get what they want or information, this gives off a bad example and image of the character. This example is seen in the beginning of Watchmen, after The Comedian being killed, the guy with the moving ink mask (cannot remember the name, but I believe Ian was playing his role in the presentations), goes to Comedian’s arch enemies house and demands for some answers or clues. He uses violence, such as breaking the fingers off slowly, inflicting pain to the arch enemy of Comedian. Sometimes, the good, in films, use many forms, whether peacefully or painfully, to get what they want, and similar applies for the villains or evil. Such examples of evil are by luring innocent people with wealth, respect, and power in order for some answers. This is seen in many films, based on the theme of good vs. evil, where the “good”, such as police officers, governments are lured by higher, powerful, rich, “evil” organizations.

However, in the end, the actions that are produced by the good are generally intended and result in positive outcome for the society in the movie, and the good always comes out on top, defeating the evil. Morales of being good in the film are meant to teach to the audience, so that they can see the outcomes from the film of being and associating with evil, which results in being caught by justice.

Films deal the same as literature does, but in films, the actions and transitions are better, as the audience can see for themselves. Comparing to a reader, where they can easily get bored, or misread the text, in films the theme of good vs. evil can be displayed so that the audience can clearly view what’s happening, and see in front of their eyes the result.

Good vs. Evil: How does literature deal with these questions?

Literature deals with “Good vs. Evil”, in a variety of ways that both show the postive and negative outcomes. Most literature deals with the theme and concept using ‘good vs. evil’ as their main plot, following this theme though conflict and ending with morals. Authors of literature use this theme of "good vs. evil", with varies complexity for different readers at different levels, to entertain, enhance and capture the audience attention and create an image.

Authors enhance the situation where it comes down to the protagonist (good) vs. agonist (evil), using emotional settings, light effects (day/night), different shades of colour & symbols (dark alley ways and etc), and the intensity of the battle. The best way an author enhances the situation is by using rhetorical devices and the way they describe in depth detail the action from transition to the next transition.

For most cases, literature deals with good and evil, as the good defeating the evil presences, and overcoming any obstacles. The evil are dealt as the ones that lose, suffer, and die, if not change into good nature. With Aladdin, the villain/ the king I believe, is defeated by Aladdin, and gets to marry his love. The good is represented by Aladdin, while the king is represented as the villain, showing that good always win. In some cases, in more novice level literature, good does not always overcome evil; evil sometimes is on top, or the good character turns into evil.

This all depends on the type of literature you read, as for different literature depending on the context can have different outcomes for the good and evil characters, meaning that literature sometimes deals differently depending on the circumstance.

Good vs. Evil: How do various religions/philosophies deal with these questions?

Religion and philosophy plays and affects our lives greatly. For most of the part, religion and religious figure guide and set out our lives for us, such as what to do, and what not to do. Flaw for religion and religious figure telling us how to live and cooperate with our lives, can be seen as a wrong and unacceptable to other people in various society. Religion and philosophy are very influential and ideal to us humans, whether we are considered “good” or “evil”. However both religion and philosophy agree on as to what is considered “good” and “evil” throughout teachings, stories, morals, principles, ethic, lessons, and texts.

Although there are many different religions and philosophers with different style of thinking and literature, they all in the end conclude that acting good/positive is better yourself and others vs. acting all evil creating negative essences for yourself and society. This is not true if your masterminded by the illuminate or the freemasons as they have different philosophies and if you worship the devil, which both are the on the same boat.

In Muslim countries that are not democratized, they still follow the Code of Hammurabi, the oldest written code of law. This is considered a harsh set of laws, defining that the action you commit, such as cutting off someone’s arm, or steal, the same thing happens to you, so you would get the same arm cut off, and if you steal you would get your fingers chopped off. This is seen as a harsh and un-justice, but in fact countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran all have low crime rates, and theft rates. So, by having strict and harsh laws and religion supporting these laws, do these laws turn society into behaving good and positive?

As said in previous blogs, defining “good” and “evil” is vague, in which different religion, society, culture, philosophies have different meanings, view, which can differ vastly or be similar. Therefore, religion and philosophies both deal with the concept of “good” and “evil” in different ways, as there are many flaws and different types of thinkers and religions.

Can good characters engender Judgments?

Yes, I believe that good characters can engender judgment. Judgment is based on how a person acts, talks, behaves in society. A good character can be seen as a person, whom does good deeds in society, such as Robin, from Robin Hood. Even though he steals from the higher and upper class families in society, Robin Hood re-distributes that money to the poor. His actions may seem as bad, but when you look at this action as a whole, you can judge that there is more and creates positive then negative. The assumption that the rich gets upon Robin Hood is that he is a filthy thieve, robbing their hard earned money, but the assumptions made upon the rest of society, is as a glorifying hero.

For say, if Robin Hood had pocketed some of the money which he stole from the riches, then we can say that due to his actions, his good, positive image of him, will be vanished and diminished. His society will be ashamed and disgraced for his small pity action. It only cost a small wrong doing to change the assumption and image of you in society. If you take a look at Simba from the Lion King, when his father dies, and the blame is placed on him, their lion society starts to hate and leave him out of their society and the lion hierarchy is placed on his uncle, Mustafa.

Whereas in films or novel, the good character tends to start becoming and evolve into evil, or his actions become worse, and their inner negative force starts to take over, this is usually the case of an external force. External force can be the nature of society, black magic, painful loss, and negative influence from peers, which would fall under nature of society. With these circumstances listed above, the protagonist, or good character, has external forces, which makes them do bad things. Examples would be redemption. Even in real life, if your neighbour killed a family member or your animal, then you would most likely; you would go and do something bad in return. This same application applies for most novels and films, where redemption would be a cause for the protagonist, or good character, conduct evil actions. Thus, the case for redemption can also destroy the judgments made by society and the reader of the good character.

Therefore, good characters can engender judgment. The protagonist or good character must then watch how he acts in society, if they want to keep their good reputation in society. As said before, it only takes a small wrong doing, to diminish that image, and takes a long time for that image or judgement to build back.

Can evil characters engender sympathy?

I believe that not all evil characters are always entitled evil. With good characters or people, they always have an inner evil mood, that generates, when their mad, or aggressive. Again, not all people are completely evil or good, they contain have some of both traits in them.

Evil characters actions are provoked by their past presences. Evil characters have motives from background situation which leads them for their actions of committing wrong doings. At once, these so called villains or evil characters, were average, normal characters living their lives, until a tragedy occurs, which then, they turn into the dark side (evil) for revenge. In Batman: Dark Knight, you can see Joker, whom goes by the story of, his alcoholic father beating him, and causing the cuts near his mouth, but also killing his mother. (Not sure about the death of the mother, but pretty sure about the cut near his mouth). Jokers abusive father, lead Joker, into evolving to the monster he is, causing chaos and destruction in the city.

In many or all circumstances the evil characters engender sympathy, as said before not everyone is fully evil. Even Hitler, whom killed millions of Jew’s, and the Sri Lankan government whom are killing thousands of Tamil’s currently, still had sympathy for several some Jews, and Tamils. In the Tamil’s case, the government still in turn, provide insufficient food and shelter for the Tamils. By providing less then minimal food for endangered people, they still have a soft side, for this people. Relating to Hitler he allowed several Jewish children to live, as he could have been evil, and have slaughtered them. Even thought that Hitler and the Sri Lankan government are considered evil to many, they still have a soft side, for their evil and selfish motives.

Such examples of sympathy exists, whereas in movies, where the villain usually gives the person being harmed or killed another chance to live, or ease their actions, resulting in lessen pain. In real life situation in our society, average/normal civilians would most certainly have engendered sympathy. If it were robbers first time robbing a person or store, the next time he does it, they may regard it or back out, after the feelings learned and being affected from first robbery done.

Therefore, an evil character whom at a time can be seen as a good character, then become evil, can still engender sympathy from their past morals.

Are There Clear Defined Roles? (Good & Evil)

In many circumstances the roles of whether being of good natured or evil, are anonymous. Whether the reader or audience is reading a book, or watching a movie, the roles are not clearly defined until later on. Depending of the type of book or film, this can vary, as in some; the roles are clear and defined.

Depending on the type of book your reading, or the type of movie you’re watching, the author is to define the roles of each character, depending on the difficulty of the book but also for whom the book is intended to. If it were a book that was intended for the audience of minors, and children, then the roles are clear and defined for the reader, as of which character is the villain and hero, the bad ones and good ones. At a novice level book or movie, the villains are usually hidden, creating a suspense, which adds clarity and emphasizing the villain by making him mysterious, which overall is the ingredients for a perfect scene. In a less complicated book or movie, the villain would already be identified and described meaning that the roles are clear and defined. But, the protagonist, nevertheless is always given a clear, heroic, good natured role, meaning that we the audience and reader can identify the good with ease.

This is also presented in the graphical comics and novels we study and analyzed in class. Comparing ‘V for Vendetta’ and ‘Batman: The Dark Knight Returns’, we seen that the roles of the villains are blurred and not defined. The Dark Knight Returns gives out a clear idea of this, as Joker, and especially Two-Face, whom is revealed as villain later on. Two-Face, earlier on the novel is considered as a man of good, fighting for the city against crimes, and the mobs, but later on Two-Face turns out to be an villain, as the audience didn’t expect this transition.

Not in every book, novel, comic, or movie are you going to find out that the roles are clearly defined. Again, it depends on the type, and difficulty of the book, whereas in a easy to read, targeted for teens and under, the roles of the characters are to be clear, and defined. In a more novice book targeted for more advance reader, the roles are going to be reveal much later on, as there will be several twists.