"By their deeds shall ye know them." We often judge people by what they do; therefore, we consider people who commit cruel or reprehensible acts corrupt, base or amoral. In literature, however, authors often introduce us to characters whom we learn to like or even respect, despite their deeds.
Write an essay about one such character for whom you developed admiration or compassion. Briefly explain why you felt his or her behavior to be condemnable or contemptible, and how the author's techniques influenced you to admire that person. Do not summarize the plot. (40 minutes)
In literature there are often characters who commit acts that are vile, bad natured and in some cases not acceptable, but we still respect them or at least understand why they did that they did. Often when faced with ultimatums literature characters are forced to do things they wouldn’t normally do. One such example is in The Road by Cormac McCarthy, where the father will do anything to protect his son.
The world that McCarthy creates is a bleak one, full of violence and strife; and this father is thrown into the middle of it with a son to protect. There are scenes where he murders people and even tells his son that if things go bad that he has to just kill himself. These sorts of things aren’t what most people would be inclined to do, they are morally and ethically wrong, but when you look at the situation you can see why it was necessary for the father to act in the way that he does.
Murder is something that most people cannot imagine committing, and that is looked down upon for religious and lawful reasons to name a few, but it understandable why the father commits these acts. If he had chosen to not kill when he did, then he and his son would’ve been killed themselves and the marauder who they chose to kill would keep on killing; it is reasons like this that we can understand a person having to commit heinous acts such as murder. We can see similar motives with him instructing his son to take his own life should things go badly, he wants to protect his son from being taken captive by the sorts of people who are found patrolling the wasteland that they live in.
Sometimes tough choices have to be made and people are forced to act in ways that are violent, extreme and in some cases unethical. It is a common occurrence in literature that characters are put into situations where this is necessary, but sometimes you can see why they had to do these things and are still able to respect them afterwards. Sometimes it is unfair to judge people on what they do, because their motivations and end results can justify the choices that had to make.
No comments:
Post a Comment