Two forces in human nature reign; Passion, to Rule; and Reason, to Essay

Two forces in human nature reign; Passion, to Rule; and Reason, to Restrain - Essay Example As it turns out, The Misfit, with the help of his two offsiders, ends up shooting the whole family. This seems an unreasonable thing to do, to put it mildly. It's hard to say whether The Misfit is ruled by passion, but he's certainly not restrained by reason. At first, he seems nothing more than a cold-blooded killer, but when he talks about himself to the grandmother, he shows himself to be emotionally confused. He doesn't understand why he was sent to the penitentiary in the first place, and he even compares himself to Jesus, who also didn't know why he was punished. He seems to think that if you can't be sure whether Jesus did the great things he claimed, like raising the dead, or you just don't believe it, then there's no pleasure but meanness, and you may as well kill people, burn their houses down or whatever. Why he should think this is hard to say, but it just seems no more than an excuse for him to lash out at a world that, he believes, has treated him so cruelly. The passio n that rules him is a cold, hard passion for revenge. In 'The Secret Sharer', the newly-appointed captain of a ship, who is clearly a thoughtful and reasonable person, encounters a man who has escaped from another ship after having killed someone in a fit of anger. Perhaps surprisingly, the captain takes pity on the stranger and hides him in his cabin.