Passage 9

The conflict between good and evil is a common theme running through the great literature

and drama of the world, from the time of the ancient Greeks to all the present. The principle that conflict is the heart of dramatic action when illustrated by concrete examples, almost always turns up some aspect of the struggle between good and evil.

The idea that there is neither good nor evil--in any absolute moral or religious sense—is widespread in our times. There are various relativistic and behavioristic standards of ethics. If these standards even admit the distinction between good and evil, it is as a relative matter and not as whirlwind of choices that lies at the center of living. In any such state of mind, conflict can at best, be only a petty matter, lacking true universality. The acts of the evildoer and of the virtuous man alike become dramatically neutralized. Imagine the reduced effect of Crime and Punishment or The Brothers Karamazoc, had Dostoevsky thought that good and evil, as portrayed in those books, were wholly relative, and if he had had no conviction about them.

You can’t have a vital literature if you ignore or shun evil. What you get then is the world of Pollyanna, goody-goody in place of the good. Cry, The Beloved Country is a great and dramatic novel because Alan Paton, in addition to being a skilled workman, sees with clear eyes both good and evil, differentiates them, pitches them into conflict with each other, and takes sides. He sees that the native boy Absalom Kumalo, who has murdered, cannot be judged justly without taking into account the environment that has had part in shaping him. But Paton sees, too, that Absalom the individual, not society the abstraction, committed the act and is responsible for it. Mr. Paton understands mercy. He knows that this precious thing is not evoked by sentimental impulse, but by a searching examination of the realities of human action. Mercy follows a judgment; it does not precede it.

One of the novels by the talented Paul Bowles, Let It Come Down, is full of motion, full of sensational depravities, and is a crashing bore. The book recognizes no evil, and is coldly indifferent to the moral behavior of its characters. It is a long shrug. Such a view of life is non- dramatic and negates the vital essence of drama.

41. In our age, according to the author, a standpoint often taken in the area of ethics is the _____.

A) relativistic view of morals

B) greater concern with religion

C) emphasis on evil

D) greater concern with universals

42. The author believes that in great literature, as in life, good and evil are ____

A) relative

B) unimportant

C) constantly in conflict

D) dramatically neutralized

43. When the author uses the expression "it is a long shrug" in referring to Bowles’s book, he

is commenting on the ___

A) length of the novel

B) indifference to the moral behavior of the characters

C) monotony of the story

D) sensational depravities of the book

44. In the opinion of the author, Cry, The Beloved Country is a great and dramatic novel be-

cause of Paton’s ____.

A) insight into human behavior

B) behavioristic beliefs

C) treatment of good and evil as abstractions

D) willingness to make moral judgments

45. The word "shun" in the 1st sentence in paragraph 3 is closest in meaning to ______.

A) shut

B) attend

C) show

D) avoid