Behind the Nature of Evil & Manipulation Has one ever been deceived or manipulated? In most people’s lifetimes, they have, whether it be from a family member, a friend or a stranger. Usually, when a person influences another to do something, it remains unnoticed to the brainwashed individual. In the short stories “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” and “The Cask of Amontillado,” the authors portray how evil is displayed and how subtle manipulation can be. Despite the fact that the criminals are somewhat gentle and misleading, they show no mercy in their actions, but enjoy their victims’ agony and horror instead with no regrets, suggesting that the nature of evil is extremely cruel, ignorant of human life and that the human capacity for manipulation has no limits. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” The Misfit, identified as an escapee and criminal, appears, at first, as a stranger with friends helping a family that just got into an accident: “ ‘Good …show more content…
In each story, one can see both sides of the miscreant, the devious side and the one of an assassin. The discreet sneaky side shows that one is willing to deceive another to get what one desires by concealing the real situation, while the eliminator side shows one’s murky, dark side and how far one is willing to go to fulfill their need of superiority and bliss. Correspondingly, one can learn that evil can be deceptive, mendacious and disingenuous, that one acquires a certain unawareness of the future and that evil can be extremely subtle or glaring and