Good Versus Evil in Three Literary Classics
Good Versus Evil in Three Literary Classics
Although they are three very different books, Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, and Shelly’s Frankenstein all have themes of the Good, The Bad and the Ugly. Each book has a theme of the confusing of what is good and what is bad, weather speaking of the enemy forces, the evils of corporations and banks, or the evil of a tormented monster and the evil of his maker.
In All Quiet on the Western Front, young German soldiers in World War One challenge their ideas, not only of good and bad, but also of right and wrong. The soldiers superiors become the enemies, and the idea that the opposing forces could be evil also is challenged. The main character Paul, commenting on Russian prisoners, brings up a few of these challenging ideas that go through the soldiers heads:
“A word of command has made these silent figures our enemies; a word of command might transform them into our friends. At some table a document is signed by some persons whom none of knows, and then for years together that very crime on which formerly the world’s condemnation and severest penalty fall, becomes our highest aim. But who can draw such a distinction when he looks at these quiet men with their childlike faces and apostles’ beards. Any non-commissioned officer is more of an enemy to a recruit, any schoolmaster to a pupil, than they are to us. And yet we would shoot at them again at us as if they were free.”
The book defines many evils, one being war in general. The contrast between good and evil is also defined through relationships between teacher and students, officers and privates, and government and people.
In Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, evil is seen in the banks, and landlords. This is also a confusing evil because it goes to a Pontius Pilate biblical illusion. The people cannot pinpoint their complaint on a certain person or group, because every group that could be blamed blames another. A small portion of the story shows this:
“It’s not me. There’s nothing I can do. I’ll lose my job if I don’t do it. And look-suppose you kill me? They’ll just hang you, but long before you’re hung there’ll...