Dr. Syed M.Ahsen

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CONCEPT OF EVIL IN GILL'S  SHRINE

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*Online Pakistan Christian Post;

Misihi Sansar, India, May 2001

 

I have been reading Gill's latest collection, Shrine: Poems of Social concerns. The `concerns' in the poems refer to the pain and suffering inflicted upon some human beings by their fellow beings, the cruelty of man to man. The camera is focused on the panorama of human life and, as the pictures emerge, one by one, we begin to get an insight into Gill's view of life.

 

The fear of a major catastrophe resulting from the stockpile of nuclear weapons accumulated by the technologically advanced nations of the world constantly haunts people all over the globe. Their hopes for world peace, sometime in the future, have dwindled into a futile dream. Gill has given expression to this universal sense of doom being experienced by our generation in the poem "Talking of Peace" :

 

                        Our citizens

                        crave peace

                        but it shall remain a dream

                        because

                        the arms of darkness grown longer;

                        the crop of the arsenal is raised.

 

"War Fever" is another poem which depicts the debilitating effects of constant threat of war. It diminishes, desensitizes the human side of our nature: It/brings darkness to the mind.

 

The most eloquent and most graphic description of the  horrors of war occurs in the poem "A Familiar Scene". It begins with the lines Bodies rotting in ditches/or dumped with the garbage, and goes to depict scenes of carnage which occur all around us, all over the world:

 

                        It is a familiar scene

                        from Bangladesh

                        at the time of freedom;

                        or a place in the middle-east,

                        Bosnia, Rawanda,

                        Somalia or Lebanon.

                        It may be any country in Asia,

                        Africa, Europe or South America.

 

The harrowing experiences Gill went through early in his life at the time of the partition of India have left deep scars on his soul. He wonders how normal people, with families of their own,

could suddenly turn into beasts and ruthlessly kill other people, women and children, burn houses and destroy everything belonging to their perceived enemies. Is there an explanation for this phenomenon? Obviously not.

 

It is the misery of the helpless victims of violence that touches Gill's heart. The poem "Somali Victim of 1992 Tribal Warfare" tells the story of a boy who is forced to abandon his home in Somalia and march to Mogadishu:

 

                        His two sisters and three brothers

                        died on the way to the capital.

                        Malnutrition, stress

                        and exhaustion from the journey

                        of one hundred kilometres on foot

                        proved a brutal blow to a ten years old.

                        His face bloated

                        while bulged eyes became almost shut

                        when he reached the refugee camp.

 

Human suffering results not only from mass violence but, more commonly, it is caused by individuals victimizing the poor and the helpless. "Amputee", perhaps the most touching poem in the collection, is about a six year old girl who is sexually abused by her father. When she can't take it any more, she runs away from her home. But her life remains full of deprivation and pain. She can't hold on to a job, gets hooked on drugs, is supported by welfare and is despised and humiliated by everyone around her:

 

                        She does not know

                        who she is.

                        The feelings of being worthless

                        often overwhelm her.

 

The painful memories of her childhood continue to haunt her. The desire for revenge against her father wells up in her and she reports his crime to the police. Her father is tried in a court of law, found guilty and convicted. But how is that going to help her now? How is she going to escape from the prison of her mind?

 

                        How to break loose

                        from the shackles of the past

                        is a never-ending question

                        for her.

                                                                       

The  few  poems  I have  referred  to  above  and many other poems in Shrine focus on the element of evil in human nature  which  manifests  itself  in  violent  and  aggressive  behaviour. What is its source? Are all of us tainted by it or just some of us? Can it be erased from human heart? These are the questions with which many thinkers and writers of the past have wrestled. Shakespeare ponders on it in his play King Lear: Is there any cause in nature that makes these hard hearts?: He divides the characters in the play into three groups: those who are wholly evil,   those who are a mixture of good and evil and those who are wholly  good.  He is not sure what is the cause of evil in human nature but speculates on it: it could be planetary influence or an inherited trait or simply an accident of birth. Jonathan Swift offers the most unambiguous verdict on the nature of man. According to him man is the most pernicious race of vermin nature has suffered to crawl upon the face of earth. Shelley believed that all human beings are basically good and would live in peace and harmony with each other but the evil tendencies in them have been created through the restrictions imposed on them by the church and the state. If these restraints are removed and men are given the freedom to choose their own way of life, there would be no more strifes or conflicts and the world would be transformed into the garden of Eden. Conrad, in his Heart of Darkness visualizes evil as an overwhelming power which poisons and corrodes the human heart. Man does not have the strength to resist this dynamic force.

 

Lillian  Feder, in  her  essay  on Heart  of  Darkness,   entitled  "Marlow's   Descent  into Hell", says:

 

            “When he discovers Kurtz, he finds , on one level, a man who has committed unspeakable crimes against his fellows. But on another and more important level, he finds a man who has allowed himself to sink to the lowest possible depths of evil, and, by observing Kurtz, Marlow realizes that in all men there is this possibility. In other words, he discovers the potential hell in the heart of every man.”

 

Gill  attributes  the  element  of evil  in  human  nature  to  the  Original Sin. Our first parents  defied  the  command  of  God and tasted the forbidden fruit. As a consequence, man was banished from Heaven and tainted with sin. In the poem "Garden of Eden"  Gill says that Adam and Eve planted:

 

                        the seed of the tree of knowledge

                        which they managed to steal.

                        It has yielded the fruit of

                        jealousy, superiority, murders,

                        rapes and exploitation in abundance

 

Eventually, he goes on to say, man will be banished from this earth that he now  inhabits to another planet, but he will carry the germs of evil with him:

 

                        They are sure

                        to carry the seed of this tree

                        to corrupt the house of the host

                        also there.

                                                                       

The numerous references to negative human behaviour in his poems suggests that Gill considers evil to be an inherent in human nature and, therefore, it is ineradicable. He does not believe that all  human beings are evil but some are. Those that are evil are so dynamic and powerful that they inflict untold miseries on their helpless victims. Sometimes there are group manifestations of human violence. At other times individuals cause immense pain and suffering to others. But, no matter how these negative impulses come into play, they will always be there with us. There is no light at the end of the tunnel.

 

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