The evil humans possess and use is a major theme in life and stories. The Veldt by Ray
Bradbury, Good Country People by Flannery O’Connor, and The Lottery by Shirley Jackson all have these themes. The Veldt reveals the dark thoughts of children when the kids, Wendy and
Peter, have their parents constantly being eaten by lions in their nursery. O'Connor shows the manipulative, evil side of Manly Pointer when he steals Hulga’s leg and shows how his personality contrasts and compares with the wide-eyed country girl in Good Country People.
When the good natured perception of people is demolished like Mrs. Hutchinson’s spirit and body, Jackson connects the perspective of society and the way traditions and rituals create people’s minds in The Lottery. In all of these books, evil is the main
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The evil inside people dominates their thoughts, but can be masked with false acts of kindness, like when Mainly Pointer seduced
Hulga and told her, “I’ve gotten a lot of interesting things… Pointer ain’t my real name”
(O’Connor 9). Every person has told at least one lie. It is a way of life, for humans have selfish or kind intentions that are not said correctly or seen as evil. Throughout all three of these stories, the true evil is revealed in the end. In life, the evil does not always reveal itself in a grand way.
Some evil stays in the thoughts and words of humans, and some evil is not discovered.
A person behaves according to their own morals, which is decided by the world’s traditions and ethics. If one’s traditions are evil, the odds are slim for one’s morals to be good.
Some evil is planted within humans from the moment a person is born. The way a child is brought up determines their beliefs, motivations, and actions. Some people grow up with a skewed concept of good and evil, which can lead to confusion of what is truly good and evil.
Shirley Jackson portrays this beautifully when Old Man Warner says, “Pack of crazy