Claudius purposefully set out to murder his own flesh and blood, which proves his selfishness, similar to the biblical reference of the serpent. The ghost goes on to say, “With witchcraft of his wits, with traitorous gifts… So to seduce! -- won to his shameful lust.” This further emphasizes the reference to Adam and Eve because Claudius acted as the serpent that tempted Eve with the poisonous fruits in the Garden of Eden, the “orchard,” to “win his shameful lust.” By expressing diction to metaphorically relate Claudius to the serpent, it helps align the reader with Hamlet and the Ghost in their contempt for Claudius and the Queen and heightens the reader’s sense of vengeance. Furthermore, in the passage, Shakespeare applies imagery to show Hamlet and the ghost's abhorrence towards Claudius and the Queen's corrupt nature. By presenting Claudius as the unfaithful serpent, it gives readers the connotation that he is evil, betraying and loathsome, correlating to the ghost’s and Hamlet’s feelings.
The boys prove man to be inherently evil through control, mistreatment, and murder. In The Lord of the Flies the boys on the island prove that humans are innately evil through excessive control. At the very beginning of the book Jack tries to control his choir, making them hunters. Jack said to Ralph, “I’ll split up the choir-my hunters that it,“ (Golding 42). Right here Jack already tries to imply that his choir is more savage than the rest of the boys by calling them hunters.
The man who meets Brown in the forest appears to represent the devil; his staff is a symbol of the devil as a serpent. Thus we regress back to the serpent that met Adam and Eve. It was, of course, a tree—the Tree of Knowledge—that tempted Adam. Goodman Brown is tempted by the whole forest. Like Adam, he suffers a great fall from innocence and turns his back on faith literally and symbolically.
(1.3.71)” Banquo also doubts the intension of the witches, he believes that evil always tells one part of the truth in order to earn one’s trust and lead him to destruction. Banquo warns Macbeth, ”But ‘tis strange./And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,/ the instruments of darkness tell us truths,/win us with honest trifles, to betray’s/In deepest consequence. (1.3.124-128)” On the other hand, Macbeth ignored his friends warning and believes in what the witches say. He is over whelmed by his ambition to be king, he said to himself,”Glamis, and the thane of Cawfor!/The greatest is behind. (1.3.118-119).””Two truths are told/,as happy prologues to the swelling act/of the imperial theme.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Young Goodman Brown” follows a Puritan man’s nightmarish encounter with the devil, which results in the loss his faith and virtue. Flannery O’Connor’s tale “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” details how a southern grandmother is only able to discover what it truly means to be good when she is faced with imminent death. Both texts showcase the classic battle of good versus evil, and provide altering viewpoints on the possible outcomes of this faceoff. The stories by Hawthorne and O’Connor both tell the tale of what occurs when a seemingly righteous and faithful person is faced with a character of pure evil, though the stories’ starkly contrasting settings and tones build each story in a different direction. Although the themes of the stories are strikingly similar, the difference in setting helps to shape how the encounter between good and evil plays out.
Character Sketch The Devil and Tom Walker Title The story "The Devil and Tom Walker" written by Washington Irving, published in 1824, consists of a protagonist named Tom Walker. The story dates in the year 1727, taking place in England, thus adding to the literary context to the story quite nicely. The story features a very ill mannered man named Tom Walker, tempted by the one very mythical creature, The Devil. The Devil represents a reflection of a side of Tom; an entity embedded within the simple soul that he is. The Devil also literally represents the gold of Kidd the Pirate.
Perhaps for the first time.” The Cartoon Man, who seemingly is appealing to the Stick Man, introduces the word ‘evil’ into the Stick Man’s life, much like Satan did to Adam and Eve in the form of the Snake. Although, these happen in different points of the story, the Stick Man, surrounded by evil in the human world, probably wouldn’t have witnessed this evil if Cartoon Man never introduced him to it. On the contrary, Adam and Eve are tempted by the snake to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, and in
The image of the serpent is linked to Satan and the dragon in Revelation 12:9 9And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. (Bible.com) The serpent as the devil is clearest when Satan appears before Christ tempting him, with things of the world if Christ will worship Satan. This example encompasses all the previous depictions of the serpent as evil and personifies that evil as Satan. Each piece of the theme of the serpent as evil over laps to a degree; temptation, forbidden knowledge, sin, false idols, and the devil, each of these visit and revisit the serpent as evil. This repetition cements the serpent as evil from a Christian perspective.
Brown's believe that they are''…a race of honest men and good Christians… "has faded (Guerin, 303). The devil deceived Brown to continue his journey in the wood, when Brown decides to return back. The devil said "sit here and rest yourself a while; and when you feel like moving again, there is my staff to help you along. ", then he vanished (Guerin, 307) (139-41). Moreover, Brown lost his trust in his people and the resource of social control became weaker in Brown's psyche ("Nathaniel").
(Hawthorne 2). With Goodman Brown being a noble Christian, he tries to explain that the woods are evil and coming from a line of good, Christian men, he will not go into the woods. Throughout the story, the devil carries around this serpent-looking staff which also shows a sign of evil. A serpent is the symbol, or sign, of the devil whose evil. “But the only thing about him that could be fixed upon as remarkable was his staff, which bore the likeness of a great snake, so curiously wrought that it might almost be seen to twist it and wiggle itself like a living serpent.” (Hawthorne 2).