In his book, Literature and Evil, Georges Bataille suggests that literature is inherently connected to evil. Its plot has to deal with evil because literature is not concerned with the mundane, but with the exciting moments. Good cannot overcome nothing, but rather there must be opposing forces at work for a plot to exist. Bataille also suggested that many authors are evil as well. He identified two. One is evil because he wrote an intimate work called flowers and evil whose title alone categorizes the work as evil. Another author defies his parents, who wanted him to choose a more stable career, by choosing to write. So, literature is evil in three ways: in plot, subject matter, and in the professionals perpetuating the field.
The idea that evil is a suggestive premise. Art compels its viewers or readers by capturing moments of intensity through often unrealistic modes. This leaves room for a number of questions:
Does the fact that literature, as defined by Bataille, is necessarily associated with evil mean that life is always connected in some way to evil as well? This also seems to be the case. Even in the mundane actions, for example, the reading of a book in the library, in a very small way, good is overcoming evil. There is always the option that I could throw my book at someone else or start yelling. If evil commonly exists in only very small amounts, then is literature an absolute misrepresentation of the world as it exists?
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