A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Independent Study

The real wars of this world are fought not on bloodied fields or tarnished shores, but in the minds and hearts of men rioted against themselves. Ever present in this eternal struggle is the presence of iniquity, the existence of which is the touchstone of our experience and the defining element of our humanity. In his pioneering novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce delves into the warring evil that confronts his protagonist on the plane of Stephen’s internal emotions and experiences. Offering several instances of the presence of evil as well as Stephen’s defiance against it, Joyce’s book reveals that malevolent acts and events are an inexorable outgrowth of the ubiquitous impiety within each of us. Also illustrating this, Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns provides a much more external and sickening array of human cruelty. Though Stephen may not witness the evil within the world to nearly the same extent as Hosseini’s Mariam and Laila, his character still presents probing mental insights into why bad things happen. Overall, both novels demonstrate the presence of evil in this remarkable revolving rock and its affects on the individuals who inhabit it.

Contemporary Issue(s): TIME Magazine Cover Article

TIME Magazine’s December 3rd cover story, “What Makes Us Moral,” provides insight into what physically and mentally makes us both good and evil. It discusses in eloquent detail how “the savage and the splendid can exist in one creature, one person, often in one instant.” Attempting to explain why this is the case, the article provides several discerning estimations that hint at an answer to my big question. I especially liked the concluding paragraph which states:

“For grossly imperfect creatures like us, morality may be the steepest of all developmental mountains. Our opposable thumbs and big brains gave us the tools to dominate the planet, but wisdom comes more slowly than physical hardware. We surely have a lot of killing and savagery ahead of us before we fully civilize ourselves. The hope—a realistic one, perhaps—is that the struggles still to come are fewer than those left behind.”

Crime and Punishment

A central theme in Crime and Punishment is Raskolnikov’s struggle between good and evil. Indeed, the true battles of this world are not fought on bloodied fields or tarnished shores, but rather in the hearts and souls of men like Raskolnikov who are rioted against themselves. In this war, Raskolnikov’s rebirth in Crime and Punishment is a testament to the strength of good and the fragility of evil. Moreover, his realization in the thirteenth chapter reveals the importance of living, regardless of how difficult life may be:

“Where is it I've read that someone condemned to death says or think, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he'd only room to stand, and the ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die at once! Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!”

Thus Raskolnikov discovers the significance of perspective, the indescribable worth of realizing that it is better to live in a world full of both iniquity and decency than to not live at all.

Jacob's Big Question

Why do bad things happen?