Humans are born to be naturally selfish, cruel, and hypocritical even if they were taught “good morals”. The poems “Those Winter Sundays” and “Rite of Passage”,the book “Lord of the Flies”, Zimbardo prison study, and through personal experiences shows the evil behind mankind.
The poem “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden and “Rite of Passage” by Sharon Olds both shows the evil of mankind. In the “Rite of Passage” the author depicts a birthday party where kids of various ages gather. A quarrel between a six and seven year old “men” arises where the seven says he could easily beat up the six, but is soon resolved as another kid says, “We could easily kill a two-year-old” (22). This shows that kids at such a young age are naturally aggressive …show more content…
Roger out of all the kids is shown to be the most corrupted. “They (The littluns) had built castles in the sand at the bar of the little river” and “Roger gathered a handful of stones and began to throw them”(59). Without parents or authority figure to tell Roger what to do, he has been showing his malevolent side not only by throwing rocks at the littlun Henry but purposely misses to implement fear into the littluns and make him feel like he has more power . Roger has lost his old self, the self that stopped him from hitting littlun Henry, and “With a sense of delirious abandonment leaned all his weight on the lever” (180). Piggy is giving his speech about the importance of laws and rescue until “The rock struck Piggy a glancing blow from chin to knee; the conch exploded into a thousand white fragments and ceased to exist” (181). Their only form of government or rule was now gone due to the bloodlust of Roger. “Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!” (152). These were the words everyone was chanting while practicing the ritual. These rituals became almost realistic where sometimes they couldn’t tell reality from pretend like in the Zimbardo prison