Good vs.
Evil
The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between
classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human
heart…even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is
retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains…an uprooted small
corner of evil. ―
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
In
the last year of World War 2, while serving in the Red Army, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
witnessed war crimes by Russian soldiers against Polish and German
civilians. It was “pay-back time” for
atrocities committed by the Germans against Russians in 1941-1943. For a time, Solzhenitsyn agreed. But in early 1945 Solzhenitsyn wrote a letter
to a friend condemning Russian crimes against civilians and criticizing the
state, including the “boss” (Joseph Stalin), for not preventing them. The letter was intercepted by the secret
police, and Solzhenitsyn, though a decorated veteran, was sentenced to eight
years in a labor camp, followed by internal exile. Solzhenitsyn’s experiences in prison, exile,
and labor camp are reflected in many of his books: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962), Cancer Ward (1968), The Gulag
Archipelago (1973), and others. It
was during his years in captivity that Solzhenitsyn abandoned Marxism and
embraced Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
A
disillusioned soldier unjustly imprisoned; we might expect Solzhenitsyn to don
the mantle of righteous indignation, to condemn his enemies, and to campaign
for their destruction. To be sure, his
books do expose the heartless criminality of the Soviet system, and
Solzhenitsyn freely criticized parties and states. But Solzhenitsyn was not content to merely
condemn the evils of others. We who
recognize the injustice of the other should also examine our own hearts. If we refuse to admit our own sins, we
deceive ourselves and increase the likelihood of new atrocities.
Solzhenitsyn’s
famous quote about the line between good and evil presents a challenge to
storytellers. As we learned in middle
school, good fiction requires “conflict” of one sort or another. In a story, something has to happen.
The protagonist does
something; she acts to achieve some goal or avoid some bad result, even if she
acts in ignorance of her true situation.
In many stories, the conflict is obvious, a battle of good guys versus
bad guys: sheriff against bandits, Odysseus versus the Cyclops, superhero
against arch-villain, and so on. The
story ends with the death or elimination of the villain or (in tragedy) the
death or elimination of the hero.
Solzhenitsyn’s
insight warns us that such stories are too simplistic. Conflict doesn’t just happen between good and
bad people (or classes or parties or states); the more important conflict often
occurs within a person. The challenge
for the storyteller is to show “action” that is internal to a character, her
struggle against temptation (or, conversely, her yielding to it). How does one display the slow acquisition of
good character or an equally gradual slide into viciousness?
Iris
Murdoch wrote that the moral life is not so much about decisions to act as it
is about attention, seeing the world
accurately. “I can only act in a world
that I can see.” And Murdoch emphasized that paying attention
takes effort; it is possible to see the world inaccurately, unjustly,
egoistically. In fact, Murdoch thought
egocentricity was the natural default setting for human beings. The battle to overcome it is central to moral
improvement. This, too, is a challenge
to the storyteller. How does an author
show the interior life of a character? How
do we show what he sees and what he attends to?
It’s not impossible; great writers have done it. But it’s hard—far harder than describing a
chase, a battle, or even a quest.
I
make no claim of success in this arena.
The characters in my stories exhibit vices and virtues, which they
display in various actions. My
characters do things. But it’s not clear that the line between good
and evil lies within them; too often the line seems to fall between good guys
and bad guys. It remains my ambition to
write good stories. I’ll have to keep
working at it.
