Evilness Essay, Research Paper

Evilness occurs in everyday life. It is a quality that has been around since the beginning of time and will be around until the end if time. It is a quality in a person that never leads to anything good. It can be found in both literature as well as reality. Evilness can cause one to harm to the world, others, and eventually to themselves.

Evilness has occurred all over in the world, in many different places, and many different ways. One example of evilness is a hijacking that took place in Afghanistan on February 6, 2000. A terrorist group hijacked a Boeing 727 from an Afghanistan airport just after take-off. It was reported that the reason for the hijack was to force Afghanistan to release the groups leader, Ismail Khan. Ismail Khan has been in the Afghan jail for over three years for previous reasons. There was 166 passengers on board the plane when it took off. The hijackers had the plane take off and land at other airports in other countries around the southern half of Europe. At each stop they would demand food, water, and to have the plane refueled. Sometimes they would allow some hostages to leave the plane and be free, if the police cooperated with the hijackers demands. One of the hijackers threatened to blow up the plane after the police tried refusing one of the demands the hijackers gave. Finally the hijacked plane landed in London where they again demanded more food, water, and fuel for the plane. This time the pilots of the plane had snuck out of the cockpit and ran free. The police surrounded the plane quickly, and since the plane now could not take off anymore it wasn t long until the hijackers gave up and released the rest of the hostages. They went to prison for a long time and was not successful in the release of their leader, Ismail Khan. The evilness the hijackers had inside them lead them to think they could be victorious but instead it only lead them to prison.

Evilness is not a quality only found in people, it is also, and will always be found in literature as well. Beowulf, an old epic poem is a good example of evilness in literature.

Beowulf tells a story about a great warrior, Beowulf, who fights evil. Grendal was an evil, blood thirsty, beast-like being who constantly killed hundreds of innocent people. He would keep killing people from the same village over and over. It wasn t long until Beowulf was called upon and came to help. He waited for Grendal to return to the village. When he did, he killed him. Grendal s mother heard about this and became very angry as well. She came after Beowulf and was killed as well. Later in the story it tells about a very powerful dragon who is woken and becomes very angry and ends up fighting Beowulf. By this time Beowulf is a lot older and is not as powerful as before, so in the end the dragon ends up killing Beowulf. He was not victorious though because in the end Beowulf ends up killing the dragon as well. Neither Grendal, his mother, or the dragon s evilness inside them lead to a true victory; it only lead them to death.

Another example of evilness that has happened in the world occurred in 1972 at the summer Olympics games held in Munich, Germany. During these games, twelve Guerrillas from Afghanistan snuck into Munich and broke into the stadium where the Olympics were held. They shot and killed to Israeli people, one being a wrestling coach and the other being a wrestling official. They then took nine other Israeli people, including five Olympic athletes, two coaches, and two Olympic officials. They held them, at gun point, in two vans in Munich. They demanded the release of over 200 Guerrillas who had been imprisoned in Israel from a previous war between Afghanistan and Israel. They also demanded a safe route out of Munich and back to Afghanistan which then they would release the hostages. After a few hours of negotiation, the Guerrillas were allowed a safe way out of Munich. They arrived at a helicopter 15 miles out of Munich. Sharpshooters were set up around the helicopter awaiting their arrival. When they arrived with the nine hostages, they started transporting the hostages from the first van to the helicopter right away. During this process, no one knows who shot first, a sharpshooter or a guerrilla, but gunfire broke out and the guerrillas shot and killed all the hostages that were taken. This dramatic event of evilness lead the twelve Afghanistan guerrillas to life in prison or death during the gun fire.

Evilness is a quality that has been around since the beginning of time and will always be around. In almost all cases where evilness has occurred, the person with that quality usually ends up hurting themselves.