Can we be born evil or is it something developed by the environment around us? Researchers have conducted experiments on this very question, and more often than not, have found surprising results each time. Each of those times though, a common consensus being that we all have the capacity to commit the unimaginable, but it takes a certain environment and people to bring it out in us. While some interpret that those who are evil are born that way, evil is something that is developed over time by their individual environment and the people within it. It’s entirely possible to be born with traits that give us the potential to be evil. In William Harms article “Psychopaths are not Neurally Equipped to have Concern for Others” he reports a study done by University of Chicago that took 80 prisoners between ages 18 and 50 and tested for levels of psychopathy using standard measures. The results showed:
The participants in the high psychopathy group exhibited significantly less activation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, lateral orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala and periaqueductal gray parts of the brain, but more activity in the striatum and the insula when compared to control participants. This latter region is important for monitoring ongoing behavior, estimating consequences and incorporating emotional learning into moral decision-making, and plays a fundamental role in empathic concern and valuing the well-being of others(Harms, 2013).
The study showed that the parts of the brain needed to give us the ability to have moral-decision making and have compassion for others was significantly more absent in those who had high levels of psychopathy. In other words, the conducted study showed that it’s possible to be born with traits (or the lack of certain traits) that don’t give the necessary understanding to differentiate what actions are evil and unimaginable to us and what is just another everyday emotion and/or action. In accordance with the results of this study, a particular murder case reveals a first-hand account of the person guilty and who openly admits he was born this way. In Christy Gutowski and Steve Mills’ article “Serial killer Brian Dugan gives 1st prison interview: 'I could not stop” they give an overview of their extensive interview sessions of his side of the story of the murders he has committed and what he openly admits about himself in relation to them.
Dugan readily admitted that he is a psychopath — manipulative, incapable of emotion, prone to violence. What's more, he acknowledged that he remains a danger to society, susceptible to a "very strong rage" and a lack of impulse control that, he said, had contributed to his violence(Gutowski and Mills, 2014).
Brian Dugan acknowledges all his defaults, and in other parts of the interview, openly admits that he has always been this way, and knows he has no moral compass. The underlying meaning of this though is that people indeed can be born evil, even realizing it for themselves. They can be completely aware of what they are doing as fact, but when it comes to emotion, it doesn’t resonate with them at all. However, it’s occurrences like this that form the belief that all people that are born with these traits are going to end up as mentally unsound people like Brian Dugan. Fortunately, many recent cases have proved the contrary.
The lack of emotion, and compassion in a person doesn’t mean these are signs of future evil doings. However, an absence of emotion isn’t always the case and outbursts of one direct emotion can be very common. I have two relatives that can suffer from this at times. They don’t have a lack of emotion but more often, have outbursts of anger, even taken as rage by others. This is where lack of compassion factors in for them. In fact, the arguments they involve themselves in are more frequently formed when they can’t show compassion for the person they are speaking to, not registering what the other person may be feeling. In contrast though, they are also some of the most loving people that I know. They deeply love their families, would do anything to help them, and treat others well on a daily basis. It reveals that a person can be more than their faults and others can clearly see they live a normal life. There are many other situations similar to my two relatives, but just a little more complicated and with scientific reasoning to why they act this way. In Judith Ohikuare’s article “Life as a Nonviolent Psychopath” she interviews Neuroscientist James Fallon who discovered he has the typical brain of a psychopath. While he lives quite a normal life, having this type of brain has affected his life in different ways than most other people.
While I was writing this book, my mother started to tell me more things about myself. She said she had never told me or my father how weird I was at certain points in my youth, even though I was a happy-go-lucky kind of kid. And as I was growing up, people all throughout my life said I could be some kind of gang leader or Mafioso don because of certain behavior. Some parents forbade their children from hanging out with me. They'd wonder how I turned out so well—a family guy, successful, professional, never been to jail and all that(Ohikuare, 2014).
As James Fallon looked more into how his brain affects his life, he started to discover that because he has lived such a normal life, he was almost innocent to the fact that he hasn’t always been portrayed by others as “normal”. On the other hand, sense Fallon was raised in a positive environment, he believes this counteracted the more negative effects that could have risen if he had been around abusive people growing up. As just stated though, it’s those exact cases of bad environments and people that can bring out the future of evil acts in a single person. When we receive a lack of care and only obtain horrific treatment from those in our environment, that is when evil begins to form inside us. As chapter 16 begins in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the monster is rejected by the cottagers he has been observing and feels instant rage for his creator, Dr. Victor Frankenstein.
CURSED, CURSED creator! Why did I live? Why, in that instant, did I not extinguish the spark of existence which you had so wantonly bestowed? I know not; despair had not yet taken possession of me; my feelings were those of rage and revenge. I could with pleasure have destroyed the cottage and its inhabitants, and have glutted myself with their shrieks and misery(Shelley 125).
The monster is infuriated with Victor Frankenstein for creating the very existence of him. He didn’t know just how much society rejected him until he realized his entrance into the world was a rejection in itself. The significance of this quote is that it shows the lack of care the monster has received since being “born”. His creator(Victor) ran out on him the second he saw him, but the monster only realizes this now as he experiences rejection again, but only this time having the thought process to comprehend it. From this point, the monster begins his journey of anger towards Victor and the urge to hurt/kill others, all as a result of being emotionally neglected and given no guidance from the beginning. While this a fictional example, there have been many real life cases of the same experience. As a part of a larger study done on homicide by professors at Clarke Institute of Psychiatry and the University of Toronto, a smaller study was done to survey the parent-child relations of murderers.
It was found on the basis of clinical interviews of 200 convicted murderers that 25 percent had a history of violent child rearing with actual beatings or physical abuse. He further indicated that they had extremely damaging early environments with 43 percent showing rejecting parents, lack of emotional warmth, and cruelty. Such backgrounds contributed to the finding that 76 percent of the murderers had defective superegos.(Langevin, Paitich, Orchard, Handy, and Russon 1).
This study shows that the majority of those who committed murder, had a family history where they had a extremely damaging early environments by their parents. It revealed the significance of needing to have a caring environment from parents in order to grow up to be an emotionally stable human being. When there is an absence of care from parents to the child and instead, is replaced by things such as violence, neglect/rejection, and lack of warmth, the outcome of growing up to be emotionally healthy isn’t highly promising for that child. We all have the ability to be evil, but when there is a bad environment and people around us, that’s when evil starts to form. As evil forms inside us, we accustom to it, and as a result, we begin to no longer see the evil in our environment or ourselves. In chapter 12 of John Gardner’s Grendel, the monster Grendel has been observing the warrior Beowulf and his men in the hall of Hrothgar, planning to attack and now, he has the chance.
They’re all asleep, the whole company! can hardly believe my luck, and my wild heart laughs, but I let out no sound. Swiftly, softly, I will move from bed to bed and destroy them all, swallow every last man. I am blazing, half-crazy with joy. For pure, mad prank, I snatch a cloth from the nearest table and tie it around my neck to make a napkin. I delay no longer. I seize up a sleeping man, tear at him hungrily, bite through his bone-locks and suck hot, slippery blood(Gardner 168).
The monster Grendel has suffered enough rejection from the people of Denmark and is ready to make the ultimate revenge by killing their new beloved warrior Beowulf and his men. The quote is significant because originally, Grendel wanted to be allies with the people and to not feel lonely anymore, but the rejection has filled him with resentment, anger, and the need to kill. He doesn’t see killing as an evil act or that it makes him evil, but it’s a necessary action to commit. Evil has overcome Grendel to the point where it is all he’s driven by. While Grendel is a fictional character, he easily represents real-life situations, even experiments on being overwhelmed by evil. In an experiment done by professor Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University, 24 college students were selected to participate in a two week long prison simulation to test the psychological effects of becoming either a prison guard or prisoner. Twelve people were selected to be the guards and the other twelve the prisoners. The guards were told they could do anything they felt would maintain control in a prison, meaning the prisoners would receive whatever treatment “necessary” from the guards. After six days, the experiment had to come to a close. The majority of prisoners where breaking down mentally and guards were becoming increasingly sadistic towards the prisoners. The situation was too powerful to continue. In relation to the guards, this experiment is significant because it reveals that the longer we remain in an “evil” environment and are given a position of power, the evil will overcome us. Harm may be being caused to others, but it is no longer seen as evil to the person causing it. Therefore, once we no longer see the evil in the actions we have committed, the chance of ever redeeming ourselves is difficult, nearly impossible. In Rollo Romig’s article “What do We Mean by “Evil”?”, he analyzes all aspects of evil, the perception of it, and if there’s truly a definition. One argument he provides is in response to american lawyer, author, and legal analyst for CNN and The New Yorker, Jeffrey Toobin. “If evil is not always the product of an intention to destroy, it is always the product of a failure of intent”(Romig 4). Romig describes that evil always forms and/or starts somewhere. Even more so, the evil acts they commit are often a result of trying to redeem themselves. They believe the next act they commit will be the one that redeems themselves from previous failure. In Frankenstein, the monster resembles Romig’s very analysis of those who commit evil. After Dr.Victor Frankenstein has died and Mr.Walton(the one he has been telling his story to) is left feeling remorse for the Dr.’s death, the monster arrives to remorse Victor’s death as well, but in the process meets Mr.Walton.
But it is true that I am a wretch. I have murdered the lovely and the helpless; I have strangled the innocent as they slept, and grasped to death his throat who never injured me or any other living thing. I have devoted my creator, the select specimen of all that is worthy of love and admiration among men, to misery; I have pursued him even to that irremediable ruin. There he lies, white and cold in death. You hate me; but your abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself. I look on the hands which executed the deed; I think on the heart in which the imagination of it was conceived, and long for the moment when these hands will meet my eyes, when that imagination will haunt my thoughts no more(Shelley 212).
The monster describes the deep sadness he feels for Victor’s death to Mr. Walton. He reveals that all he wanted was acceptance from Victor; he never wanted to hurt his loved ones and make him lonely like himself, but he was so consumed by evil that he deemed his actions necessary. The significance of this quote is that even though the monster still feels his actions towards Victor’s life were essential because of his own misery, he wants to be forgiven for them. He knows they will not be, but to state the wanting of it is important to him in the death of his creator. The monster experienced misery because Victor didn’t accept him in his entrance to life, which developed evil in the monster over time, but in the end, without the chance to redeem himself to Victor, is left to die evil. While some interpret that those who are evil are born that way, evil is something that is developed over time by their individual environment and the people within it. Unfortunately though, we can’t go back in time and fix those troubled individuals. We can’t erase the bad environments they grew up in or the people that were in it. We can’t prevent the evil crimes that those troubled people never imagined committing. We all have different beliefs on what evil is or where it comes from, but in the end, the “what” and the “where” aren’t important. When evil actions are done on society, the majority of us feel the same remorse and are affected the same way.

Works Cited
Gardner, John. Ch.12. Grendel. New York: Knopf, 1971. 168. Print.
Gutowski, Christy, and Steve Mills. "Serial Killer Brian Dugan Gives 1st Prison Interview: 'I Could Not Stop'" Chicago Tribune. Tony W. Hunter, 13 Dec. 2014. Web. 8 Mar. 2015.
Harms, William. "Psychopaths Are Not Neurally Equipped to Have Concern for Others." UChicagoNews. N.p., 24 Apr. 2013. Web. 8 Mar. 2015.
Langevin, R., D. Paitich, B. Orchard, L. Handy, and A. Russon. "Childhood and Family Background of Killers Seen for Psychiatric Assessment: A Controlled Study." Journal of the American Academy Psychiatry and the Law Online. N.p., 1 Dec. 1983. Web. 8 Mar. 2015.
Ohikuare, Judith. "Life as a Nonviolent Psychopath." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 21 Jan. 2014. Web. 8 Mar. 2015.
Romig, Rollo. "What Do We Mean By “Evil”?" The New Yorker. Condé Nast, 25 July 2012. Web. 08 Mar. 2015.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. New York: Bantam Dell, 2003. Print.