Joseph’s Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Sir William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, and William Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

Our world seems to be the battlefield of an apparently never ending war between good and evil forces. Mythology, philosophy, different branches of the arts have attempted to account for this dispute, and have understood or explained the origins, the essence and the relationship between these forces im different ways. Literature, of course, has not benn exempted from this interest. Authors of different times, places and ways of life have represented this fight, and these forces, in an attempt to understanding them. This representation has taken a number of forms, certainly dependant upon a number of varibles such as time, context, culture, belief, and philosofical background, but there seems to be a general agreement on three basic forms of representation: forces of good and evil as static and never changing; forces of good and evil as the two extremes of a continuum, dynamically moving from one extreme to the other; and, more perturbing perhaps, forces of good and evil as ambiguous, as difficult to identify. It is the purpose of the present paper to discuss and to explore these three forms of representation of good and evil forces, taking as illustrative examples three major works mainly concerned with the theme, namely Joseph’s Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Sir William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, and William Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

Joseph’s Conrad’s Heart of Darkness represents good and evil in a basically static way.

The diferent settings of the novel express these forces too. London is represented as the city of light, of civilization, order and morality, its clearly representing good. On the other hand Africa represents evil, its an unknown and unexplored land of darkness. Its also associated to chaos, disorder and savagery. Both River’s shown in the novel are oppsite to each other. The Thames river in london si full of light and clamness. Opposite to the Congo river that represents disease, fear and danger. The boat in the frame waiting for the tide it represents a good setting, the unity of this group of friends waiting to go on sailing at the tranquility of dawn. In the story, Marlow travelled through the Congo river on a steam boat that has recently been repaired and taken from the bottom of the water. It also represents this journy in Africa and the backwardness of the country. After travelling through the river they reached the Inner station and found Mr Kurtz in the lodgings in the wild, this obscure and wild setting can be contrasted with the house of the intended that represents light and purity. The symbols of the novel are mainly two. Mr Kurtz’s painting at the central station of a blindfolded woman carrying a lighted torch is considered a symbol of evil. This image represents the European colonization of Africa, this woman is blindfolded meaning justice but at the same time not watching the consequences and what happened to the natives when spreading the european light, the torch she holds. The main symbol of good is the candle in Kurtz room when he is about to die, although it symbolizes his life it also represents civilization and morality. In this novel, evil is predominant, almost everyone in africa was evil, the colonizers who treated very badly and exploited indefence black men, who were portrayed as savages. Marlow, its a dynamic character, his attitude and way of thinking changes in this voyage to the Congo. In Africa, he had to be tough and he did nothing to help the slaves who suffered around him. And the beggining he was an innocent man in pwho was looking for a job, and after this experience his personality changed. Mr Kurtz is also a dynamic character. Although he represents evil and power in the novel when he gets to know Marlow, in this encounter he is shown as beloved by the Africans, calm because of his illness and changes his mind and wants to go to see his intended. The intended is the only character that represents good and its static. In this novel as in the settings the representations of good and evil stay static and maintain majorly in the way they began through out the whole play. In spite the fact that some actions or thoughts can vary the image of the elements discussed maintain in a static way, this is used to create the effect related with the Calvinistic perseption of man, who are said to be naturally evil. Because of this this novel is so dark and the characters act in a somber way, in the same way they did when coloniszating Africa that is what it is tried to be represnted in the novel.

Related to this Calvinistic perseption of Man, and also in a quite sombre way, William Golding’s Lord of the flies represents the forces of good and evil as dynamically moving from one to another extreme of a sort of moral continuum.

An example of the dynamic settings is the beach. This was the place were they first encountered and the conch was found. Also in the beach was the place were Roger threw stones to the litluns and he punched piggy. Later the storm would bring a dead pilot considered a monster to the island bringing chaos. And in the end is where the order is restored, when the children are found by a ship, saved and taken back to society. Castle rock is at first a place of hope, wich mantained their innocense, but it would later become Jack’s new tribe. Where killing and extreme savagery will take place. The jungle is also a dynamic setting, in this place Ralph

Characters are mainly complex, not ambiguous, characters evolve in different ways, they are not completely evil or completely good. The exeption is Simon, the only static character of the novel who can be classified as entirely good, but mainly in a symbolic way of what he represents. Characters such as Ralph and Piggy can be considered as good characters but who go changing in the novel because of thier experiences in the island and the fall to temptation as humans do. As almost every character in the island they get more mature and get their own personality and views on the actions they commit. Roger is the main representative of evil but he is not absolutely evil, For example, when he threw rocks to the litluns he did not intended to hurt them but to scare them, here his morale is represented and also in other actions. And Jack, the leader of castle rock is also a dynamic character. He disagrees with Ralph and makes his own tribe. Although he can be considered the main representative of evil he is a dynamic character.