Rentz Zoey RentzProfessor WilliamsLiterature 1116 April 2013VillainsThe antagonist, the scoundrel, the bad guy, the villain; there are many words used to describe the character of a story who opposes the protagonist, or hero. A central element in many stories is classic conflict of a hero versus a villain, a battle ofgood versus evil. Does the human soul make a character evil? Or, is evil is an outside force that an individual must withstand? What makes a storybook villain so popular? What makes real life villains so popular? There are many questions surrounding the evil actions of villains, and a wide array of answers ranging from science to religion. There are three villains from three very different stories that I would like to discuss.The first story is titled, “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” by Flannery O’ Connor. In this story there are two main characters: the grandmother, and an escaped convictwho calls himself ‘the misfit’. The story begins with the grandmother speaking to her son, whom she lives with. She is trying to talk her son into taking his family and her on a vacation to Tennessee. They disagree on this because him and his family want to go to Florida, the grandmother tries to guilt him by telling him that there is an escaped convict that is going towards Florida, and that she wouldn’t drive her children towards a criminal like that. Eventually the grandmother gets her way. 1Rentz There is some vanity associated with the grandmother; she dresses nicely and properly for as she thinks a lady should, that way just in case there is an accident she would be identified as a lady. While driving she convinces her son to take detour by promising the kids that a house she wants to look at has a secret room. They end up rolling their car on this dirt road in the middle of nowhere. Another car pulls up and turns out to be the escaped convict with two other men. They eventually murder the entire family. When you break this story down and think about right versus wrong the misfit is evil and the grandmother is good. Simply put because the misfit killed a family of innocent people. When you look deeper into the characters things become less clear. The grandmother is not honest, and she seems to become a different person depending on the situation she finds herself in. On the other hand the misfit is honest and true to himself. The first showing of this is just after the accident when the misfit finds them. "’We turned over twice!’ said the grandmother. ‘Once’, he corrected. ‘We seen it happen’” (O’ Conner). The grandmother exaggerates the accident to the strangers possibly to get more sympathy from them. The lie was unnecessary but it stays true to her characters fake values.The misfit is honest with the family. He does know that he is in control of the situation. "’Lady,’ the man said to the children's mother, ‘would you mind calling them children to sit down by you? Children make me nervous’” (O’ Conner). The 2Rentz misfit remains calm and polite, while still exerting his power. The grandmothers’ character for some reason identifies the man as the misfit. He tells her that it would’ve been better for all of them is she had not of done that. Her character seemserratic and starts to unravel at this point in the story. She no longer seems to hold onto any of her values, and ultimately this is what ensures their demise. Now while yes the misfit is the quintessential bad guy, especially after killing an entire family. I think a case can be made against the grandmother. The misfit never pretend to be anything he wasn’t. It was common knowledge that he was a killer, and he stayed true to that by killing the family. The grandmother acts as she thinks others think she should act. She goes from being scared of the misfit to telling him she knows that he is a good man. Her character unravels as she tries everything she can to get him to not kill them. Unfortunately, her becoming what she thinks the misfit wants is exactly what he doesn’t want.When the misfit has the men with him take the grandmothers son into the woods is when I think the grandmother becomes true to herself. “The grandmother reached up to adjust her hat brim as if she were going to the woods with him but it came off in her hand. She stood staring at it and after a second she let it fall on the ground” (O’ Conner). The grandmother no longer cares about her vanity, which is what I think her true character has always felt. "’She would of been a good woman,’ The Misfit said, ‘if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life’” (O’ Conner). I think the misfit is right, because the grandmother became her true 3Rentz self when she was going to be shot and if this had been the case her whole life than maybe she wouldn’t of been in this situation.Are people who cause violence and commit murder considered villains? Is it that simple? What if the situation is paradoxical when one murder would save the majority? In this scenario let’s say you are a mother with a newborn baby and four kids. Your house has been broken into and you and your children have successfully hid in a closet. The burglars do not know you’re there but you hear one walking around the house. Your baby begins to cry, and you cover his mouth. Your baby cannot breathe with your hand over his mouth, but if you let go they will find and kill you and your four other children. Do you smother and kill your baby to save the rest of you? There is no right answer to this question, it seems that evil presents itself during situations. “Honest moral decisions depend more on the absence of temptation than on the active resistance of temptation” (Greene). It is easier for humans to make an honest decision when there is nothing to tempt you to making that decision. Morality is essential in defining evil. Think about a tornado killing 30 people versus a person killing 30 people, both are bad. However, the tornado is not called evil while the murderer would be.The next villain I would like to discuss is the character in the story “The BlackCat” by Edgar Allan Poe. In this story the character explains that this is his last 4Rentz confession because he is to die tomorrow. He has lived with the burden of the thingsthat he has done. He goes on to explain that he loves animals because they love you unconditionally. He married a