Emilio Sandoz and Evil

          Emilio Sandoz was surrounded by evil in many parts of the book. The first evil in the novel to occur to him was the destruction of his hands. At first, one might think that the action was more evil than it was because any human would have an idea of the pain that would be caused by cutting all the muscle out of someone’s hand. However, the Jana’ata does not go through the same pain and this is not used to hurt someone. Sandoz said he is unsure of why they do this but it is possibly a sign of beauty. Although one may be quick to judge an action such as this as moral evil it is important to remember that the intentions behind the action may be different then they seem.

     An evil that is really hard for Emilio to deal with in his life is the death of all of his friends. They all die from many different causes and most of the deaths were fairly harsh. Some died from natural evil, while others died from moral evil caused by different species on the planet.

     Natural evil is destruction cause by natural causes, such as earth quakes and tornadoes. An example of this in the book is when Alan died from an unknown cause but he died peaceful. I would consider this natural evil because this is an evil that happens in nature all the time. People die and it is normal to die from sickness and poor health.

     The VaHaptaa hunter who killed Anne and D.W. caused moral evil because he knew he would be causing harm to Anne and D.W. although he probably did not realize the effect it would have on all of their friends. Moral evil is when another human inflicts pain and suffering on to another human intentionally. And so we can see this in D.W. and Annes death as well as Sofia, Jimmy and Georges death. The Jana’ata in this even slaughtered all the Runa and humans, except Mark and Emilio out of fear that the Runa would rise up and fight them. However, this occurred after the Runa’s babies were also slaughtered by the Jana’ata.

     All of these evils Emilio had to witness and then deal with afterwards. There effects had a huge impact on his faith in God. But the moral evil that got to him the most was being caged nude and then being raped by many people. This act may or may not have been considered evil by the Jana’ata, however, in our society this is an evil act. The Jana’ata seem to have a different perspective on sex and rape in terms of evil. The Jana’ata probably could have been able to tell that Sandoz did not want to be there and did not want to be a part of these acts. And so in the way they were forcing Sandoz to do something he didn’t want to do. That is moral evil because they knew they were causing him to suffer.

     The priests seem to use Sandoz as a scapegoat, they are constantly assuming that Sandoz caused most of the evil that happened on the new planet. They blame him for killing the child without even knowing the circumstances and accused him of willingly becoming a prostitute. Throughout most of the book they give the impression that Emilio caused most of the evil that occurred on Rakhat. On the contrary, we find out the Emilio was caged and raped for money and that he killed the child because he thought that she was going to be the next one to rape him.

     Lastly, Emilio faces survivor’s guilt all throughout the novel. Survivor’s guilt is when a person feels guilty about surviving a horrific event when all of his family or in this case, his close friends did not survive. Because his friends faced such horrible deaths and deaths that he had to watch, Emilio had a hard time letting go and wished that he had died along with them. At one point in the novel Emilio finds out that he consented to having the muscles in his hands removed and that he also consented for Marc to have his done. At this point Emilio felt he had caused Marks death and made him feel very guilty. Therefore, Emilio went through a lot of suffering in his life. He lost his friends, some in horrific ways, and also lost his faith and love in God. Now Emilio is at a point in his life where he must learn to forgive himself for evils that he had no control over.




By Katherine Pellin