BIG QUESTION culmintaing essay prompt

Is humankind inherently good or evil?

Writing Prompt:
In the same world, we have had peaceful and god-fearing men such as Muhatma Ghandi, and we have had others such as Adolf Hitler, who have set out to destroy the world and alter it to their own benefit by taking millions of lives of others. There is a line that runs from complete good to complete evil, some fall on either side, and many many more fall right in the middle, perhaps tilting to one side or the other. So which is it? Is humankind inherently good or evil? Can there be a complete right or wrong answer? Please use the following list of books, and others you can think of, as well as pop culture, current events, poems, and anything else you can think of, to answer this question.

• Crime and Punishment
• The Stranger
• East of Eden
• Oedipus Rex
• Wuthering Heights
• Kite Runner
• The Magus
• Beloved
• Slaughter-House Five

What current events, personal experiences, and pop culture relate to my BIG QUESTION?

Current Events: Even though there are many evil AND good things that go on in our world, we really only hear about the evil things because that is what gets the ratings up and draws in people's attention. Why? Is that wrong/bad? Why can we as humans not get the same pleasure at hearing about the good things that people do in their lives? Why do the evil things get blown so out of proportion?
Personal Experiences: I don't think I feel comfortable putting my good v evil experiences in my culminating essay...
Pop Culture (i.e. movies, music, etc.): Cat Woman? (She is both good and bad, but chooses bad she wants to be); Lord of the Rings (battles between good and evil, proves that there are both in the world and we must fight for the right one and 1 hope that we choose correctly, and 2 overcome evil tendencies because if you are unaware those feelings are inside of you, you can be easily overtaken by it);

What poems relate to my BIG QUESTION?

...

How does the book "Beloved" answer my BIG QUESTION?

The book Beloved deals a bunch with the idea of a dead baby coming back from her grave and she haunts her mother who killed her and her younger sister. In class we talked about her sadistic characteristics and the way she forced others to do things for her, and Paul D to have sex with her. This definitely could be an argument for my culminating essay, but it is a magical realistic novel and I'm not sure that I will use it, because I cannot argue very well that she is an example of humans being evil since they do not often times return from their graves.

Current Events/Pop Culture

POST IN PROGRESS!!!



-Current events, article from newspapers, magazines, blogs, etc., summarize AND REFLECT, movies, television shows, songs, best-selling books, u-tube videos, etc.

-Offer specific examples AND REFLECTS how they relate to my big question.



Current events - good deeds for community v war

Movies - (Reality movies? Or just usual Hollywood type movies?)

Songs - Gospel v Eminem

Books -

How do the books "East of Eden", "The Stranger", and "The Magus" relate to my BIG QUESTION, are humans inherintly good or evil?

East of Eden by John Steinbeck - (See paragraph in first post about my big question. More symbols and themes to follow, but I read it over the summer and my books begin to run together! :D )

The Stranger by Albert Camus - In the book The Stranger, the reader struggles in determining not whether the main character is good or evil, but whether he has a conscience! Does he have a moral compass that tell him what are and are not acceptable actions in life. And although this may seem to argue that humans are evil by nature, he is "the stranger", a mutant from the norm of society and the what most people are like. Also, if this poor man is born without a conscience (which I do not believe because by the end he begins to realize what a good life he had and how he would have began to live it had he not been sentenced to death) than that would not make him evil; a child born deaf does not make them rude when they don't answer you when you call to them.
(Notes and annotations in my composition book and novel will also help with elaborating more on this paragraph for the paper.)

The Magus by John Fowles - In the book The Magus, the end of the novel proves good intentions from the "teacher" Maurice Conchis, but a good intention may or may not justify the means; that would be the argument for this paragraph because his actions, and those he forces his actors to perform, are sometimes very controversial and cause the reader to ask if he is a morally good person under all his facades and lies. Also, it questions the morality (does morality = good?) of the actors and even of the main character Nicholas because of his reactions to what is happening to him and his decision at the end when he is finally asked to judge them for all his humiliation.
(And again, MANY MANY annotations in my novel about this question.)

(Thinking about adding Crime and Punishment instead of The Magus with obvious good v bad debates.)

Is humankind inherintly good or evil? - New Reflections

I can't remember when the first time is that I ever asked myself this question, if ever...actually, I can't recollect having ever wondered about it. It's an interesting question and one that I don't believe we as humans could ever come to a definite answer about, but I think my answer will always be the same. The battle between good and evil within our bodies is a great one, and I would like the chance, through literature, to prove that humans are neither. As I stated in my first post about the good and evil within us, I don't believe there can be a force of nature that forces us to be good or evil, but rather we all have a little of both...there is a large grey area that better describes the inherent nature of humans.
Ironically, through no pre-planning, most of the books I have read this year have dealt with the question of whether people are good or evil (East of Eden, The Stranger...twice, Crime and Punishment, The Magus, Oedipus Rex...) and I believe it's a huge question that many author's are simultaneously attempting to answer.