Part VII: In Love and Death

Beloved goes right along with everything I've been saying this far about how good and evil is relative. Sethe killed her youngest daughter, Beloved, to save her from slavery. The community was disgusted with her and thought she was a monster, but to her it was an act of love. She only killed Beloved because she knew death was far better than slavery. But then comes the question of whether she had the right to determine her child's future. So when it comes down to it, Beloved brings up the conflict of good vs. evil, but it is in the form of love vs. selfishness or pride. As for who determines what good and evil is, Beloved seems to suggest that good and evil can only be objectively labeled once the outcome of the act is seen. If it has a positive outcome, there you go. Good. However, if it has a negative outcome, that's bad. Unfortunately, nothing is quite that cut and dry, but that's the gist of it. The point is, it's hard to say if what you're doing is good or evil when you're doing it. History can look back at anything and determine it was evil. Just look at slavery. Slavery existed in America for so long because at the time, no one thought it was evil. Obviously, now we can see that enslaving other human beings is pretty bad. But at the time, it was just the norm.

Part VI: Absolution

There is no good and there is no evil.

At least, that's what Camus appears to be saying with the The Stranger. Meursault is the most logical person in anything we've ever read and he seems to recognize that good and evil are just arbitrary words that we assign to things that we do or don't agree with. Meursault kills a man, and when told that he should be feeling guilty, he simply cannot because he does not think of it as an evil act. He doesn't think of it as a good act, simply an action that he carried out. In this sense, I agree with Meursault. What I've been saying in many of my posts is that good and evil is relative. That what may appear to be evil to one person could be the most pure act in another person's eyes. To take it one step further, it could be said that "Good" and "Evil" are just labels that we assign to the things we think oppose or support us. A devout Christian might call an Atheist evil because he doesn't believe in God, but that Atheist could be donating millions of dollars to charity, adopting needy children, etc. The point is, evil can be looked at as merely the opposition to your own ideas that you view as "Good." Just as Meursault is seen as a threat to society because he does not go along with what society tells him he should.

Part V: Prepare to Be Wrong

The Metamorphosis applies to my question from a different angle: how perception affects what is viewed as good or evil. In The Metamorphosis, Gregor transformed into a disgusting creature and is therefore treated poorly. Based purely on his appearance, Gregor's family treats him with disdain as if he were something evil. They fail to recognize that he is the same good person that provided for them for so long. Conversely, once Gregor is forced to look at how his family treats someone in and unfortunate condition that they didn't like, he sees that they are not as kind as he once thought. So maybe what Kafka claims is that good and evil depends heavily on your point of view. A poor man might not see stealing as evil, just as a way to provide for himself. But a wealthy man might view it as evil. At the same time, the poor man might think the wealthy man evil for not helping the poor, while the wealthy man just sees it as his way of life. It's a conundrum to say the least.