Good vs. Evil

(1) L'Engle proposes that good is signified by love, emotion, art and choice while evil is signified by hate, indifference, control and a methodical, cold impersonal control. I think that the author is trying to show this definition of good overcoming evil by the happy reunion that the family is able to have. It is signified by this overwhelming of happy emotion and acceptence. Everyone of the protagonists seems to get what they want. I think that she is trying to say that fighting for "good" is worthwhile because it ensures that love is preserved and expressed.

(2) Looking at pg. 101 "Everybody knows our city has the best Central Intelligence Center on the planet. Our production levels are the highest. Our factories never close; our machines never stop rolling. Added to this we have five poets, one musician, three artists, and six sculptors, all perfectly channelled."

I think this particular passage does a good job of representing the world that IT has created. It is highly efficient, but at the expense of all emotion, all joy. Channeled seems to insinuate removed. It seems as though all of the things that encourage joy and bliss have been removed. There is a quote somewhere in the book where one of the characters states that people do not suffer but they also never experience joy, and that is what is evil. This theme of machine-like lives is the evil that the author is trying to express.

On the question of this concept of good and evil being helpful or harmful.... I honestly have a hardtime seeing it as significant. The idea of good vs evil is a concept that is defined differently by different people. There are not really absolute definitions, and I think that this book does not do a good enough job analyzing the concept to make a solid definition of its argument. Even if it was to go deeper, I do not think it is possible to make definitions like this that always work. To the people in our class it might sound like evil to have such an oppressive order on us.... But would someone who grew up as a refugee in one of the war torn countries in Africa or The Middle East have such a problem with all of that enforced order?