Alden Bell's The Reapers are the Angels. Temple's evilness and ethical behaviour

Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, University of Koblenz-Landau (Institut für Anglistik), course: 21st Century American Fiction, language: English, abstract: In Alden Bell's "The Reapers are the Angels" ethical behaviour is largely influenced by the most basic instinct: survival. The protagonist Temple lives in a world of zombies and these conditions coerce her to kill "meatskins" and grieve the loss of loved ones. The basic conception of ethics "What shall I do?" (cf. Schwerdtfeger, 2005, 14) is turned into the question: "Why did I have to do that?" and most importantly "Am I evil?". Temple is determined to answer this question with "Yes!". However, she is not depicted as such a person.This paper's aim is to discuss her evilness and to conclude that she is in fact not evil at all. For that reason two basic questions follow: Why does she think so? and how is she characterised? In order to answer these questions first an ethical theory is needed which shows that Temple is living an ethical life. Seneca, a Roman philosopher, provides this theory. Furthermore, the term evil has to be explained and defined as far as it is possible. Lastly, I will discuss Temple's killing scenes in The Reapers are the Angels and the two fellow, major characters Moses and Maury in terms of the before assembled theories in order to evaluate her evilness and to answer the above uttered questions.