The Darkness Within
It can be said that a certain degree of darkness lies within every person, but this darkness will not surface unless given the correct environment. I do not agree with this statement in its entirety. Due to our sin nature, we all have a level of darkness within us and no matter what our environment is that darkness will always try to surface. The darkness has the potential to ultimately destroy the person if not checked by reason. When one's inner darkness does surface, the victim is given the opportunity to reach a point in personal growth, and to gain a sense of self-knowledge from it. That is, when one's darkness appears, one must learn from this experience how he or she can prevent similar results from occurring in the future. It is ultimately through self-knowledge that we gain the power to defeat our inner darkness, and all of its elements.
Just as everyone has the potential for evil within themselves, we too have the potential for true goodness. In the novel Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad we see how Marlow's journey into his ultimate evil, into his inner self, can be a positive experience. By contrasting Marlow with Kurtz, who represents the absolute evil, we can see the two products of an inner evil which has emerged. Marlow, who defeats his evil, and gains self-knowledge, and Kurtz, who is defeated by his darkness and falls prey to its wrath. In William Golding's Lord of the Flies the author points out how easily people can be over taken by the darkness, how the potential for good can be destroyed by the evil, but ideally how good will triumph. The circumstances which eventually cause the appearance of the inner darkness in these two novels stems from the lack of civility, the true test, or journey which every life contains, and finally the product of evil which lies in all of us, either through acts of commission or omission.
When there is no civilization in a person's life, they will lack a level of restraints and...
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