How does Buffy deconstruct traditional literary notions of good and evil?
Buffy the Vampire slayer says alot just in the title, she kills vampires. You watch the show and she kills vampires and demons and saves the world alot. So this would make you believe that she is good, vampires are evil, demons are eveil, in fact anyone against her is bad in some way. This is wrong. Traditional notions of good and evil are that good people will go to heaven and are do-gooders of the world, evil beings will die ad go to g=hell for their crimes whether they be murder etc. So traditionally Buffy would be about the good guys saving everyone and the bad guys (vampires etc) being killed by the good guys(Buffy and the gang).
However, Buffy falls in love with a vampire called Angel, granted he is a vampire with a soul so cannot hurt anyone and wants to help Buffy. But Buffy loves him, she even in one episode when Angel kills a demon and his 'vampire face' is out and is looking 'evil' she kisses him. Buffy also throughout the seasons doesnt kill deomsn unless they attack her, there is even a demon bar in Sunnydale(where she lives).
Though there are bad guys in the show, season one was the vampire master, season two was Anagel going bad without his soul, season three is the mayor of Sunnydale turning into a evil snake like demon and tryign to kill the school, season 4 is the 'frankenstine' like creature Adam trying to kill them all, season 5 is a god tryign to kill buffy and her new sister(resulting in the death of Buffy), season 6 is 3 guys trying to be super villians and then kill Willows girlfriend aso she turns evil witch and season 7 is the opening of the hellmouth and fighting the true ' first evil'. Buffy saves the day every episode and every season, but does that make vampires evil?
Willow is good, but she kills people and tries to use her witch powers to kill everyone, but for 6 seasons she was good, she still is good. This shows that though Buffy is a vampire slayer, demon fighter and all around good gal she doesnt kill them unless she has too.
The defintion of good is changed, the defintion of evil is changed in Buffy: demons become boyfriends and girlfriends, grief turns a 'good' person into the literary notions of 'evil', Buffy the vampire slayer shows that there is no 'good' or 'evil' there are just people who save the world and people who
want to destroy it.
I like your conclusion!!! I guess BtVS touches on the moralistic notions of good and evil by pushing the idea that their divides are very blurry. One minute you can be the best person ever, but if life throws you something terrible, the moral struggle of good and evil becomes blurry within ourselves, as it does in Buffy.
ReplyDeleteSome interesting points and I also like your conclusion - many students in answering this question have overlooked the teenage angst/coming of age at highschool metaphor symbolised by the demons in BtVS. However overall you really need to make reference to and include a discussion of the theoretical text for the week (this is what the questions are designed to do)usiong references where appropriate.
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