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?

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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.