When evil has a human face

Any kind of good art always makes you wonder introspect and look and feel deeper And thatrsquos what the two new shows mdash Carrie on Amazon Prime based on Stephen Kingrsquos novel and East of Eden based on John Steinbeckrsquos novel mdash did for me last weekCarrie is a supernatural story about a young girl Carrie White with telekinetic powers who gets bullied at her high school for being different Her primary bully is popular girl Chris Hargensen East of Eden is about the lives of the Trask Brothers moulded as Cain and Abel Cathy Ames a sociopathic woman who runs a brothel Lee a kind Chinese housekeeper and Samuel Hamilton who portrays the idealised American spiritBut to me both the shows boiled down to their evil incarnate characters In Carrie itrsquos Chris Hargensen and in East of Eden itrsquos Cathy Ames They disturbed me and also fascinated me And what was most scary was that people like this exist all around usBut what makes a monster a monsterIn Carrie Chris Hargensen takes a dislike to the simple optimistic hopeful Carrie White the first moment she sees her She uses bullying as a way to reinforce her own superiority and to define who is ldquocoolrdquo But as the show progresses you see her turn a blind eye to her own role in her suffering or to Carriersquos innocence When things go wrong for her as consequences of her own actions instead of taking responsibility she retreats deeper into the ldquoitrsquos not my fault itrsquos yoursrdquo trope By the end she blames Carrie for destroying her lifeStill from the series East of EdenI was startled watching this character mdash asking myself ldquoHow can she not see what she is doingrdquo But that brought me to the fact that most people who suffer from narcissistic paranoia believe that they are being persecuted and since their ego is too fragile to process guilt they rewrite their reality into believing that whoever questions them is the enemyIt brings me to the opening sequence of East of Eden where Cathy Ames as narrator says ldquoI believe there are monsters born in this world to human parents A monster is a variation from the accepted normal A child may be born perfect but without kindness or conscience To a monster the norm must seem monstrousrdquo In Chrisrsquos eye Carrie is the monster but itrsquos brought on by an entitled childhood where her lawyer father covers up all her faults severe insecurity family instability and lost opportunities If she had been prescribed therapy or had good mentors before things went south it could have helpedIn East of Eden Cathy Ames has no such problems to blame her evilness on She agrees that she is born without empathy She later admits to her husband Adam Trask that she knew that the world was evil that everyone has an agenda and that to survive you have to be evil She tells her son Cal that even though Adam was kind to her and cared for her she knew it was so that he could ldquotrap herrdquo She fooled everyone who thought they could trap herAmes is widely considered to be one of literaturersquos most chilling examples of a total sociopath She doesnrsquot understand love or kindness and sees those as weaknesses She uses people and feels pleasure in mistreating the ones who show her love What makes Cathy so fascinating is that she lacks a conscience and doesnrsquot feel the need to justify any of her actions Florence Pugh as Cathy Ames in East of EdenIt felt unnerving to watch the shows and try to make sense of the charactersrsquo choices It felt even worse knowing that somewhere in my 44 years on this planet I have met people like this People who lack empathy for anyone other than themselves People who are insensitive to everything other than when it hurts them People who see everyone who questions them as an enemy People who have never wasted a thought thinking about the role they play in their own suffering or someone elsersquos People who would never apologise never take accountability just so they can preserve their ego People who are nothing without external validationIt also made me realise why we need to watch more cinema and TV shows and read more books Art has a way of delivering lessons in the most beautiful and effective way