The Stranger: Are People Good Or Evil?

Are people really evil? Or, is it their actions to blame? Are we capable of judging such things, or are we trying to take things into our own hands? I believe that both can be good, but i also feel that both can be just as evil. For we humans can be corrupt and overly zealous thus tainting our actions, but just as we can taint our actions our actions can just as easily taint our very selves changing us as we once changed them. First I will show how the person can be evil while his actions are not. On page twenty-nine of ,”The Stranger,” Raymond states,” I am not a bad guy, but I have a short fuse.” As he explains to Meursault how he had been on the train and he had the chance to ignore the stranger who had approached him ready to fight.
On page thirty-six of ,”The Stranger,” Raymond had been in a fight with his girlfriend who had cheated on him and a police officer had shown up to take care of the issue but Raymond was being rude and smoking a cigarette while talking to him, so the police officer said,” Take that cigarette out of your mouth when you are talking to me.” but Raymond hesitated, looked at Meursault as if to find some sort of approval and then looked at the cop and took a long drag on his cigarette. This made the police officer mad. Infuriated the police officer smacked Raymond, it was a good hard smack, and sent Raymond’s cigarette flying across the landing. In this example the police officer who is a nice and gentle person got angered and his actions were evil while his initial intentions happened to be pure.The officer was even nice enough to let Raymond pick the cigarette up off of the ground before he left. So in essence the police officer was a good person who had become angered and his actions as a result became evil while he was still a good
This proves that the person can be a dark and twisted being who deserves what they end up receiving later on. However mankind can also be a wonderful thing with many things to look forward to and enjoy as on page thirty-four when Meursault goes to the movie theatre and watches movies twice with Emmanuel even though he knows that Emmanuel will not understand a single thing and that Raymond will be explaining what is going on throughout the entirety of both movies. Also we must never forget that the person who may be a good man or woman can also act as an evil being would like on page thirty-six the police officer who lost his temper and smacked Raymond knocking his cigarette out of his mouth because Raymond angered him. This is my stance on the question of who is evil, the man or the action? and I will hold to it