by Puller

Created on: January 08, 2009

Good vs. Evil is an ongoing battle in most books and movies, and good and evil are clearly opposite of each other. Or are they? Good and evil are not totally opposite themes they are one depending on each other. Good cannot exist without evil and evil cannot exist without good, they each make up each other. They are a domino effect, if one occurs the other must follow, and they are both found within each other. The similarities between good and evil are found inBeowulftranslated by, Burton Raffel and inThe Elephant Manby, Christine Sparks. In these two books, "good" is fueled by evil, "good" isn't "good" for everyone, and good doesn't last forever.

Wanting to gain a better reputation fuels wanting to do "good" in the beginning of the storiesBeowulfand The Elephant Man. InBeowulfthe mighty Grendel is terrorizing the Danes and eating men in the mead Hall every night. Beowulf hears of this evil monster and decides to go kill the mighty Grendel himself. The night before his showdown with Grendel he boasts to the Danes, "That I alone... may purge evil from this hall" (Raffel 261). When Beowulf says "I Alone.." this explains that Beowulf wants the glory of fighting and killing Grendel by himself. If someone helped him kill Grendel he wouldn't have gotten as much glory. He is not going to Kill Grendel to help the Danes, he came to Kill Grendel to win glory. In the beginning ofThe Elephant Man, Mr. Treves is hunting for a freak. He is a doctor and wants to find a freak as a specimen to study and make a name for himself. Treves would travel to carnivals around and his wife knew it wasn't for his daughters enjoyment but for his own pleasures, "sometimes he would catch his wife's accusing eyes on him, for Anne knew only too well that his daughter's pleasures was not his main motive" (Sparks 3). At carnivals Treves would not spend time with his family enjoying the fun atmosphere he would spend it looking in freak tents for his way to make a name for himself.
A good thing for one person might be a bad thing for another person, there are two sides for of everything. In Beowulf's fight with Grendel's mom, Grendel's mom fights, "To Avenge her only son" (Raffel 520). From one view point Beowulf did good by killing Grendel he helped save the people, but from the other view point, he killed a son and then he killed a mother. No matter what the circumstance, killing cant be justified you can always say something else could have been done. InThe Elephant ManTreves saves John from

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