INVIGORATING TITLE
The matter of morality makes for a deceptively complex discussion. Good and evil actions are categorized variously by different religions, organizations, families, and authors. Moral alignment, a popularized system mainly used referencing fictional and historical characters, classifies people and characters by their views and reaction to the world. Before this system surfaced among the recent generation, authors, playwrights, and philosophers have established their own contrasting views on the idea of human nature. Among these was William Golding, who elucidates in his novel Lord of the Flies how humankind will eventually dissolve reason and civility and resort to their most base and visceral instincts. Contrastingly, in the excerpt “Good and Evil” from The Prophet, a poet named Khalil Gibran argues that human instincts are not always unreasonable or savage, but simply underdeveloped and self-serving. Both authors define humanity as stemming directly from nature; people’s actions are reflected in or influenced by the world around them. Golding believes that humans are more predatorial at their heart of hearts, wired to eventually reject reason and break down to their primal urges, while Gibran displays that humans are closest to the environment, where they lie at multiple points of wisdom, born into goodness or born to develop goodness.
William Golding constructs his beliefs regarding morality through characters’ symbolism, dialogue, and characterization.