Chaos and savagery come as a result of men trying to find pleasure without making sacrifices. Order are situations in which humans are forced to suppress their instincts and follow rules to attain their goals. 4D. The subject ive chosen is sort of a broad idea that can be grasped by looking deeper into the idea. By looking at the fact that Golding is trying to explain that all humans are evil can tie into the Chaos on the island.
(D.H. Lawrence, "Morality and the Novel") Aesthetically, the fiction which reveals a truth by explicit sermonising rather than as a natural conclusion drawn from the relationships and events it presents, is displeasing, even "immoral." Indeed, Martel's statement is likely to have the opposite effect on his reader, provoking a determined counter-reaction not to succumb to a didactic religious agenda. Surely enough, Life of Pi fails to meet its ambition. As he travels through its pages, apparently on the Damascun road to enlightenment, the reader will not, atheist or already committed follower, experience some major revelation to the spirit, coming to, or restoring, a belief in God. Nor, despite Martel's explicit but deceptive statement, is he intended to.
Dickens shows the disasters of the failed Gradgrind philosophy with the use of foreshadowing, reoccurring themes, pathetic fallacy, symbolism along with the actions and outcomes of the characters being affected. He shows us warning signs which lead to the main progression of the novel when the main culprit of the educations system, Gradgrind, is forced to realize that it is inhumane to rule out love and imagination. Utilitarianism is a belief that actions are right if they are useful or for the benefit of a majority. Utilitarian thinkers threaten to replace ideas of morality with statistically based explanations. The education system where “little vessels” are “ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them” is the product of a system that claims that people should act only according to their self-interest.
In pursuing his scientific experiments and validating his work, Jekyll claims, "man is not truly one, but truly two." Thus, in Jekyll's view, every soul contains elements of both good and evil, but one is always dominant. In Jekyll's case, his good side is dominant, but he knows there is evil inside of him. However, as a respectable member of society and an honorable Victorian gentleman, Jekyll cannot fulfill his evil desires. Thus, he works to develop a way to separate the two parts of his soul and free his evil characteristics.
By victor claiming he can produce life, it lowers the potency of the soul itself and belittles its creation - this is blasphemy and would have been outrageous for the Victorian’s as it was seen as taboo to promote science and challenge religion. Sutton¹ says that this idea “Gnaws at the autocracy of the soul, by sporting with the possibility that man is capable of ‘making’ himself…” “Gnaws” implies that both Victor and Dr Jekyll are trying to explore deeper into the world of science in an attempt to achieve something powerful, but it connotes that this is deemed a negative thing. “Autocracy” refers to absolute authority or power, which in this case is associated with God, so if the soul can be replicated by one such as itself then this lessens its absolute authority. Whilst creating the monster, Victor gathered body parts from other dead being’s, which brings the question of where then; does the monster’s consciousness come from? This is clearly a deliberate denial of God.
George Elliot, an English novelist stated “it is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view” (qtd. in Goodreads). Tony Alamo, a manipulative preacher, is a prime example of a narrow-minded individual. In his article, “Taking Sides”, he claims, “it is the responsibility of honest and upright adults to weed out the novels that would damage children”. He continues his claim that the works of well-known authors such as Shakespeare and Hemingway should be banned from American Culture.
Society's religious beliefs of God being the only procreator were threatened by science as Victor has attempted to play the role of God by procreating, as the creature's language suggests "natural lord" "my creator", and uses religiously negative language throughout the novel, for instance "I bore a hell within me which nothing could extinguish" Through this, Shelley is demonstrating society's belief that scientific exploration cannot replace the role that nature plays in creating a natural world; it is portrayed as a threat to the natural world through Victor's line "I pursued nature to her hiding places" which shows that Victor is disturbing nature. This notion is reinforced through Victor's destructive language when describing the creature's appearance, for example "The deformity of its aspects" "demoniacal corpse"; it is evidently physically ugly and repelling. This provides a contrast to several characters created by nature,
April 4th 2012 MW 10-11:15 Intro to Philosophy In On Free Will, Augustine claims that there are two types of evil: the evil men do and the evil men suffer. First, how does this relate to his argument concerning free will, and secondly, do you agree or disagree that the sins [of man] can be charged against God because of the existence of evil (the nature of the universe)? Explain. When Evodius speaks with Augustine, he picks at the thought of God being the author of evil (OFW, Book 1, I, section 1.). Augustine replies back to him which kind of evil is Ev talking about: the evil that men do and the evil that men suffer.
Hardy confronts organized religion because of the lack of compassion toward less remarkable people and places humanism as a more pure notion to live by. Hardy's negative treatment of religion in Tess of the D'Urbervilles stems from his belief that if a higher power exists, it corrupts mankind whereas humanism proves to be the perfect substitute. The injustice of giving an innocent, bastard child an improper burial and abolishing their only chance of salvation after earthly life is Hardy's main comment on how the depraved religious system in phase the second infects a man of repute, causing him to change his morals for the worse. The Vicar finds himself rejecting innocent Tess Durbeyfield's request of giving her child a proper, Christian burial, admitting "I would willingly do so... But I must not," (Hardy 97) indicating how a man of the God and the church was turning away from justice in order to assimilate into an elitist, apathetic society.
However, he doesn’t make this deal in order to achieve a certain goal: he is not attempting to find love or riches; he is purely attempting to gain power for what appears to be power’s sake. This wanton lust for power is something a reader in Marlowe’s era would consider as evil, as he craves the ability to undermine God’s will. The liminality between human and ‘unhuman’ is something that underpins Gothic literature as a whole: it features in Frankenstein, Dracula, and arguably even Wuthering Heights. Marlowe uses this Gothic convention in Dr Faustus through his presentation of Faustus using the classic religious language of Latin in order to attain power in Act I Scene III. This immediately sets up a conflict between as Faustus desires to achieve power which hasn’t been given to him by God but through an ultimately religious form of attainment.