Inate Evil to Kill a Mocking Bird and Lord of the Flies

The capacity for humans to do good and evil portrayed in the novels To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Lord of the Flies by William Golding (title subject to change)

It is generally known that human beings have the power and the means to help and love one another as well as the complete opposite in hatred and destruction. These two novels deal with the theme of good vs. evil in their own respective ways. One concentrates on the affect of discrimination and negligence and naivety that allows people to respond in ways that can be interpreted as being evil. Whereas the other focuses on the affect that isolation and deprivation can take toll on the very fragile psyches of children who are unfortunate to live a life set with no boundaries, no knowing the differences between right and wrong.

It is felt that a person has the innate ability to do wrong and cause harm be known to them or not. It is the circumstances surrounding a person that can dictate their actions.

An important theme of To Kill a Mockingbird is the book’s exploration of the moral nature of human beings, whether people are essentially good or essentially evil. The novel approaches this question by dramatizing Scout and Jem’s change from childhood innocence, in which they assume that people are good because they have never seen evil, to a more adult perspective, in which they have confronted evil and must incorporate it into their understanding of the world. One of the book’s other important theme involves the threat that hatred, prejudice, and ignorance pose to innocent: people such as Tom Robinson and Boo Radley who are not prepared for the evil that they