Banality of Evil

The banality of evil is a terrifying concept. It’s much easier to view evil in a cinematic manner than it is to confront its reality. Villains in movies are consumed with rage. They laugh evilly and delight in pain. Evil in reality is more mundane. It’s bureaucratic. Some Nazis were consumed by a deep hatred of Jews. Some were violent beyond reason. Most were simply doing their job. It’s slightly unsettling to think about, but I have no doubt that all the lovely little soulless bureaucrats who seem to simultaneously navigate and construct that maze of red tape that is our school have more of a capacity to commit atrocities through their dehumanizing system than any of the young men our society views as violent. ANYWAY.

            Styron says in the novel that he wants to understand Auschwitz. He later says that no one will ever understand Auschwitz, but that we have to try. I think Styron tries by attempting to understand the Nazis. He’s not validating their views, but he’s reminding his audience that Nazis are human beings.

            Sophie’s Choice is really defined as a novel by the choice. It’s famous—everyone who hasn’t read the book or seen the film vaguely knows what the choice is: something about her kids or something and like one of them has to die. Sophie is forced to choose one of her children to be sent to the crematoriums. This choice destroys Sophie’s life. Virtually the entire novel is built around dissecting Sophie’s guilt from the incident. But when he reaches the choice, Styron doesn’t venture into Sophie’s reasoning at all. He delves into the thoughts of the man who makes her choose. He paints a detailed psychological portrait of this Nazi as a man who has been dehumanized, has lost his capacity to feel, through the banalization of atrocity. He has become so desensitized to pain and so distanced from any moral code that he has lost himself. Styron paints his horrendous act not as one of a monster lashing out but as one of a tortured, objectified human being attempting to regain his own agency through committing an unspeakable atrocity. Styron’s humanization of these monsters makes his point—it demonstrates that evil comes not only from passion but from desensitization and habituation. Styron’s emphasis on the fact that the criminals in the story are humans makes the immediate impact of the story harder to evade as well. Styron will not allow the Nazi atrocities dismissed; he will have them discussed and delved into as a human issue.

            I think what I’m getting at in an inarticulate way is that I’m very drawn to the concept of the duality of human nature and the duality of each human attribute. In this novel Styron paints pictures of human beings who are wronged and who do great wrong rather than “good people” and I’m compelled by it and am getting closer to knowing what I have to say about it.