reform's special supplement, reform literature, june 09

8/14/2019 Reform's Special Supplement, REFORM Literature, June 09

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Index

Devil vs. Angel? / pek ap ..... 1 Evil in Us / Egenur Bak ner ... 3 Little Bad Seed in Us / Dilara ahin ..... 4 Evil does not Live in the Cave Borneo/ Ceren Burak Da .. 6 The Nature of Human Beings / Gzde Kavak 9 The Presence of Evil in Humankind / Romina Azoz .. 11

REFORM LITERATURESpecial Supplement of Reform

June 2009, Number 4

Designer Erkut Deral

Periodicalistspek ap , Egenur Bak ner, Dilara ahin,

Gzde Kavak, Romina Azoz, Ceren Burak Da

[email protected]


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DEVIL VS ANGEL?OR IS IT JUST THE DEVIL HIDING

BEHIND THE ANGEL?

pek API

Everyone should be careful about their choices because the evil hidingbehind the angel can easily overcome the angel and one day you canlook in the mirror and see a tail and horns but not two beautiful wings.

In every culture and society there is a clear

distinction of evil and good. People, their habits,

behaviors and also people themselves are always

evaluated under these two main adjectives: Evil and

good. It is one of the most popular problems human

nature dealt with and is still dealing with. A lot of

books were written, a lot of movies were made on

the eternal battle of good and evil. Despite the

distinction, it has always been a question whether

everyone is only good or evil. Mostly people think

that evil is present in everyone because it is notpossible for someone to be as innocent, pure and

good as an angel. Everyone has some dark, evil

side and the main issue is controlling it, so there is

not such a thing that good people never do bad

stuff; good people have the potential to be evil but

they can control themselves and this makes them

good. In the famous play Macbeth, this is one of

the main themes. Shakespeare mainly discusses if

evil is present in everyone or not. I believe that it is.

In the play, the main character Macbeth is the

main symbol of evil. People believe that the difficult

situation, the manipulation of the witches and Lady

Macbeth made Macbeth evil, he was good at the

beginning and he didnt have any bad intentions.

For example, when he first heard the prophecy he

decided not to do anything to make it happen, if it

happens, then it will. But after Lady Macbeth talked

with him and convinced him to commit the murders,

his opinion changed. The quote: Look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under it

represents Macbeths situation pretty well. I totally

disagree with those opinions, because I dont think

Macbeth could be evil when he was totally pure

before. There was evil present in him; he only didnt

notice that because a person cant murder someone

because of fulfilling words of a woman or

manipulation. If someone commits such a big crime

then theres definitely evil present in them. Just like

in Macbeths situation; he was very happy to catch a

tyrant in the very beginning of the play. Then the

prophecy awakened his ambitions and also the evilpart of him. As a result of having a weak character

and weak moral values, Macbeth was easily

manipulated by his evil side. For example, when he

realizes how far he went, he thinks for a moment

about giving up all the things he did, but then he

decides that he has already stepped in so far and

his evil side prevented him from being good again.

In addition to the main character Macbeth,

Banquo also shows us that evil is present in

everyone. Despite my opinion, some say that

Banquo doesnt show any evil intentions. They

advocate that he was always a good man and he

didnt want to do anything even after hearing the

prophecy. For instance, he knows that the words the

witches said may affect him in a way that he doesnt

want, so he is cautious and he doesnt pay attention

to those words. He knew what might happen and he

wanted to stay as an honorable man. I dont look at

the events the same way that the people whobelieve he is good do. I think even in Banquo there

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EVIL IN USEgenur BAKINER

In the play Macbeth, the reader can easily

focus on the theme of evil. Somebody can think that

an evil spirit is present in everyone in the play and in

real life, somebody can support the opposite idea.

Therefore the theme evil is really an interesting

theme to talk about. Im one of the readers who

think evil is present in everyone in the play and in

real life. I think every human being has bad and

good sides and the bad side includes the evil spirit

too.

There may be so many readers who think that

evil isnt present in everyone. They claim that idea

since they have examples to give. They can say

Macbeth is innocent, evil isnt present in him,

however he wants to prove himself to his wife and

he murders people just for this reason. They have a

point in thinking like that. However I think a quote in

Act 1, scene 3 can easily persuade them: Present

fears, are less than horrible imaginings. My thought,

whose murder yet is but fantastical, shakes so my

single state of man that function smotherd in

surmise, and nothing is but what is not. In this

scene the readers havent met Lady Macbeth and

Macbeth thinks about a murder. On the other hand,

opponents of this idea can claim that evil isnt

present in Macbeth, hes just an ambitious man and

he tries to be successful. I cant agree with this idea.

In Act 3, scene 5 Macbeth says: All causes shall

give way, I am in blood, steepd in so far that shouldI wade no more, returning werw as tedious as go

oer. This quote shows us how he accepts the

situation. He thinks hes got so much blood on his

hand that it doesnt make a difference if he goes on

or stops committing crimes. Its not ambition, its

greed, and greed has evil. So I think after seeing

this evidence, there is no way we can agree with

what they say.

The ones who think that evil isnt present in

everyone put forward this idea because they have

the Banquo example. They think evil isnt present

in Banquo, hes loyal, honest and not greedy at all. I

have to admit theyre right about it. Banquo has a

great personality. However, in Act 3 scene 1,

Banquo talks to himself about Macbeth and the

murder. He doesnt want to be influenced by his

own thoughts and he says: Hush, no more. It

shows the reader that Banquo has an evil side too,

but he can control it. Hes not 100% pure and

innocent, its just about controll. On the other hand, I

can give the example as Lady Macbeth. Nobodywould expect evil behaviour from a woman,

however Lady Macbeth is the worst person in the

play. In Act 1, scene 5 she says: That tend on

mortal thoughts, unsex me here and fill me from the

crown to the toetopfull.... If a woman, the person

who milks the baby, who is supposed to have a soft

nature says that, then evil is really present in

everyone. So we can easily understand that their

argument is irrelevant.

Present fears, are less thanhorrible imaginings. My

thought, whose murder yetis but fantastical, shakes somy single state of man that

function smotherd insurmise, and nothing is but

what is not.

In the play, the theme of evil is a focus point.

Banquos good personality, Macbeths will to prove

himself to his wife can lead the reader think evil isnt

present in everyone. Im one of the readers who think

evil is present in everyone since even a great person

like Banquo has an evil side, and as a woman, Lady

Macbeth, has an evil side. Opponents of this idea

have some points, but in the end as William Golding

says: Everyone, who is not understanding that man

produces evil as a bee produces honey must be blindor wrong in his head.

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LITTLE BAD SEEN IN USDilara AHN

Evil takes action with an impulsive movement

William Shakespeares play, Macbeth, is

about a man who is tempted by evil forces. This

made him do horrible things and finally ruined his

life. But was that evil force interior or exterior. Are

all human beings born with pure goodness or is

there an evil seed planted in all of us? This

question has been the subject of many other

novels, too. K. M. Ballantynes novel The Coral

Island is a novel which was written to show that

all people are good inside. After that William

Golding wrote a novel, Lord of the Flies, to

prove the claim that there is evil in everyone. I

agree with William Golding about human nature. I

think that human beings have both good and bad

sides.

Opponents of this idea may say that there is

not any badness in human nature. The social

surrounding is the cause of evil actions of men.

Problems in their life are what make people do

bad things. These problems could be about

economical situation, life standards, family, etc.

For example, in big cities crime rates are higher

in than ghettos. People who live in places like

that are more likely to commit crimes, like in

Harlem in New York or Esenyurt in stanbul.

However problems in society are not the cause of

evil actions, they only awaken the evil part of

humans. Evil takes action with an impulsive

movement. There are some triggers which will

make someone show his or her bad side. These

could be money, power, love,

sexual desires, etc. For

example, in Macbeth what

affected Lady Macbeth andMacbeth was their desires to

be the king and the queen.

After they heard the prophecies

they couldnt enjoy Macbeths

new title which was a great

success. They only thought

about coming to a higher

position. Macbeth says, Stars,

hide your fires; Let not light see

my black and deep desires. Aswe can understand from this

quote it was their desires for

power which triggered the evil

part in them. Also when

Macbeth changed his mind

about killing Duncan, Lady

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Macbeth influenced him by questioning his love

for her, his bravery and his manliness. The

second trigger was saving his dignity and proving

that he is a real man. So when peoples desires

overtake moral values and rules that can cause

them to do horrible things like committing crimes.

People who believe that hu man beings are

com

He didnt say. He got angry

and

why?

two members of this

cam

kind has both goodness and

bad

pletely good may use Tao philosophy to

prove their claim. According to Tao philosophy

people are good when they come to life but the

society and the government are the cause of all

evil. If you try to control or limit people, youll

cause them turn from good to bad. If you leave

people on their own they will build a civilized

society on their own. Also Banquos actions could

be an example for that. In the play after hearing

the prophecies Banquo could have killed Duncan

too. In this way he could be sure that his children

would be kings. But he didnt take action like

Macbeth and left it to fate. Did he do that

because of his pure nature or was something

else affecting him? I think there is an evil part in

Banquo, too, like every human being. He didnt

take action against Duncan because of his

loyalty. Also, according to their beliefs, the king

was assigned by God. So he was representing

God on earth and murdering him was the biggest

crime and sin. In general, we can say that people

dont show their evil part because in society evil

is not considered normal. Laws, ethics rules and

religion limit us. If we put some people on a

deserted island, where there are no rules, they

will all show their evil sides one by one. For

example, The Lord of the Flies is about a group

of kids who crashed on an island. They first

choose Ralph, the oldest boy, as leader. He tried

to keep acting in a civilized way. He arranged

meetings and made rules. But then another boy,

Jack, organized another camp where he was the

leader. But this camp was very different then the

old one. There was no democracy. The only rule

was to obey the chief without questioning.

Roger: He is going to beat Wilfred.

Bill: What for?

R: I dont know.

made us tie Wilfred up.

B: But did the chief said

R: I never heard him.

This is a dialog between

p. It explains the tyranny in that camp clearly.

Also day by day Jacks camp became stronger

and finally he decided to kill Ralph and he almost

succeeded. So if there are no rules or social

conditioning to limit human beings, even children

can do evil things.

All in all, human

ness inside. It will be wrong to say that

someone is totally good or evil. It depends on a

persons character and social surrounding to

determine which one will be more dominant,

because some people can be affected easily,

they choose the simple way, to be cruel.

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EVIL DOES NOT LIVE IN THE CAVE BORNEO 1

Ceren Burak DA

Im here on the ground with my nose in it since all the thing began! says Al Pacino in the role of

Satan in Devils Advocate. So, could we ask

ourselves where this evil is hiding since the

beginning? In the caves? Maybe the Cave Borneo,

in the deepest hollow of all the Earth? Is it so far

away from us? Or let us think about the total

contrast of it: What if evil is closer than we suppose?

What if it sits in the house of your neighbor? Or

what do you say if you find it one day inside you?

Now it is the time to be transmitted to the essential

case: To be honest Macbeth was a very loyal and

noble subject of his king; however he killed him with

a sudden prophecy without judging too much,

instead of it, listening to the call of his ambition. As

per it is a little bit crazy to imagine that evil

supervenes from Cave Borneo to reach its task in

Macbeths soul, wed be better off considering the

evil that is born and will die with Macbeth. Although

this intro gives the reader a little clue about the

structure of the article, it is significant to emphasize

that an article develops as a scientific theory.Namely, that means after a hypothesis is tested, it

is decided to be accepted or not. Due to this fact,

science does not aim only to find the truth but to be

wrong in this path and rearrange itself too.

When it is glanced to the 100 % pure characters

in literature, we encounter some of them naturally.

Actually these kinds of characters, the ones who

only shelter the goodness inside themselves, are

the members of Romanticism. In romantic pieces it

is significant to realize that there are two main colors

in the plot which are totally-white and totally-black.

These plots do not include intermediate tones as itis seen. For example, in Turkish Literature Ahmet

Mithats novels such as Mr.Felatun and Sir.Rak m

shows these kinds of specialties. Ahmet Mithat

ornaments Sir Rak m with all the good signs and Sir

Rak m does not do anything degenerated morally in

the plot. But on contrast of him Mr. Felatun has the

worst human sides and consequently a dirty life.

This scheme points out the theme of the excess

difference between goodness and evil and

supporters of this theme naturally put forward an

idea that the evil is a concept which could not live in

a place where goodness exists. However,

opponents of the thought of evil is in every one

miss a point in the comprehension of movements. It

is obvious that the world literature creates the

opposite pole of an idea. Thus, we see the

succession of Realism after Romanticism in the

history. In the contrast of romantics, here realism

announces that there will be no idealism but

description of what there is. This statement shows

it clearly enough that a realist should put all the

things in his hand in the soup and to achieve this it

is necessary to give up the exact differences

between good and evil.

Im here on the ground with my nose in it since

all the thing began! saysAl Pacino in the role of

Satan in Devils Advocate.


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shows us the inner conflict of Lady Macbeth which

is a case between her evil and goodness. She is evil

enough to prepare to commit a murder but also is

good enough to compare Duncan to her father and

decide not to kill him by herself. After seeing this

evidence, there is no way we can agree with what

they say. As a result of this, it is quite possible to

find a piece of goodness in the most evil person as

well as to find evil in a good person, as in the

philosophy of yin-yang.

In conclusion of all discussion on evil in humans,

it is apparent that there is evil in every mother-born

person. This is not an obligation but a natural result

of nature, because nature itself has its own dialectic

and in this kind of natural logic, a pole cannot live

without its opposite pole. In these limits, to be just

good and pure is not in the borders of human

definition. Thus, every single person has evil inside

him and to dominate it is the specialty that

differentiates people.

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Cave Borneo is the biggest hollow of the Earth

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Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts,

unsex me here, make thick my blood. This

shows us that Lady Macbeth is aware of the evil

inside of people and she used that evil power to

reach her goal. She also manipulated the evil

inside Macbeth to encourage him about the

committing the murder of King Duncan. Shortly,

people have evil inside that makes them potential

sinners.

As a conclusion, there is evil present in

everyone, but what makes a person good is to

know how to take control of that evil spirit, and

direct it. Most of the time the evil deceives us by

showing to take the easiest and shortest way, but

it is not always safe to follow up the short cuts.

Do not change your way once you believe it is the

right one, and never forget to think about the

consequences of your actions and the help of

using the talent of reason for making right

decisions.

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THE PRESENCE OF EVIL IN HUMANKIND

Romina AZOZ

What an evil person! we say to ourselves after

we see somebody doing something wicked or any

person who is offering a seat to an old one becomes

the symbol of kindness in our eyes. After seeing

peoples behaviors in society, it has became a quick

response to classify them into good or bad. But

what is evil? Where does it come from? How did it

develop in us? Has anybody asked or got curious

about, I wonder. Evil is one of the personal

specialties which has a huge role in forming our

characters. Is it present in all of us? Its acomplicated question whether we have it or not. The

things that shouldnt be forgotten are that evil is one

of the elements of human nature and with the

effects of environment its not possible to say we

dont have it.

As being the most complex creations in the

universe, human beings have a psychological

backcloth besides physical ground. Think of that like

a soup, all the qualities have been donated to

humans from God, a little bit of honesty, some jealousy, a little kindness and some of that

meanness etc. In some of them the most harmful

and dangerous one evil can be passed out and

those people wont have the quality of evil in any

part of their lives. These are known to be the

prophets, the holy men who are the symbol of

goodness and its derivatives. Another example for

pure goodness can be the ones who believed in

mysticism. According to their belief people like

Yunus Emre, Mevlana or Yusuf Has Hacib didnt

contain any feeling of evil in their hearts and only in

this way they could reach God, which was their

biggest will, ideas may say. However, when looking

at the situation with a more realistic way its seen

that evil is one of the elements of human nature, it

has been put in that soup like every other

characteristic. It comes from the birth and develops

in our structure throughout the time we grow. Its up

to us whether to arouse those feelings of evil or tocontrol ourselves. Everybody can carry evil thoughts

in their minds but the important thing is to act wisely

by not putting those thoughts into action. In that way

you wriggle yourself away from the evil ones and at

that time you become virtuous. For example, if

someone is more successful at painting than you, if

you choose to tear his or her canvas into pieces

then you couldnt chip the evil in you, on the other

hand if you realize that by doing that you wont get

anything and that person will keep continuing being

successful eventually, you dont have the signs of

evil in your actions. Another example fromShakespeares famous play Macbeth can be the

character Banquo himself. The most important

reason for creating such a character like him by

Shakespeare is to show the difference between the

good and evil. From this quotation; Why by the

verities on thee made good, may they not be my

oracles as well and set me up in hope? But hush, no

more. its obvious that Banquo has evil thoughts in

his mind like Macbeth but he chooses to believe in

God, obey the nature and leave those prophecies tofate. Unlike Macbeth he used his intelligence and

wisdom with his bravery and managed to prevent

himself from doing evil actions. As a conclusion,

being evil is one of the basic properties of mankind;

the separation between good and evil ones is to

have an autocontrol mechanism.

Everyone is an individual and has their own

thoughts. People who are not evil are born pure

innocent and continue to live like that, they dont get

impressed or affected by their environment, they are

one hundred percent good. For example you cant

make a good person betray anyone, he or she

would immediately stand against for that and fight

for their thoughts, some may think. On the other

hand, the huge effect of environment can not be

ignored. People who are weak can get influenced

very quickly. A persons character development

depends on the place where he or she lives and

who he or she lives with. For example, if a personlives with someone who is always saying evil things,

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there is a huge possibility that this person would

think about those evil things. Another example from

the play called Macbeth is Lady Macbeths evil

effects on her husband. She literally wakes up

Macbeths evil thoughts after he has already been

influenced by the wicked witches already. She uses

the language in the most persuasive way such as

calling him a coward or sissy and emphasizes the

importance of manliness by accusing him of not

being a man. When you durst do it, then you were

a man. she says to Macbeth when he gives up their

killing plan. She even connects this matter with their

love and uses her womanly powers to impress

Macbeth. From this time, such I account thy love.

she says. Looking at all of her expressions its seen

that she triggers the evil in her husband. As a result,

environmental effects have an importance on the

peoples characteristics, especially weak people can

be influenced from the others very quickly and

follow the path of evil in their l ives.

When you look deeply at the psychology of

humans, its clearly seen no matter what amount,

there is an evil presence in every one. Otherwise

there wouldnt be a life circle which keeps changing

from day to day. Making the choice of being evil or

not is up to us, we can choose to shave those

feelings or close our ears to other peoples voices

which call for evil desires whereas others can add

other evil thought on and on into their minds and

listen to the people around them. What will your

choice be?

Another example for pure goodness can be the oneswho believed in mysticism.

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