A Deep Dive into Good vs. Evil in William March's The Bad Seed

This essay analyzes William March's novel, The Bad Seed, focusing on the interplay of good and evil as manifested in the character of Rhoda and other characters. It explores how external forces shape Rhoda's actions and understanding, highlighting the novel's exploration of the balance between goodness and evil, and the power of evil to influence human behavior. The essay references critical perspectives, such as Jill Erickson's analysis of the horror within the novel, and examines how March uses narrative techniques and character development to convey the themes of morality, innocence, and the origins of evil. The essay also examines the goodness represented by Kenneth and her husband, and their response to Rhoda's actions. Ultimately, the essay delves into the psychological dimensions of the characters and the external factors that shape their moral compass.

Response One: Prompt Three
The Bad Seed by William March is one of the finest examples of external forces affecting
the growth and understanding of a child of the world. In fact, the unusual behavior of Rhoda and
it horrifying consequences prove that the goodness and the evil exist in balancing situation in the
world, however, evil is always more powerful to tempt than goodness. Rhoda develops the
extraordinarily strange habit of killing people when she does not receive the desired things. As a
child, she does not know the scale of ‘evil’ she commits. March mentions the death of others in
terms of justifying her actions as, “The time comes in the life of each of us when we realize that
death awaits us as it awaits others, that we will receive at the end neither preference nor
exemption. “ (March, 1951) thus, by calling the death as an ‘inevitable hour which awaits alike
all’, he tries to show the thought processes of Rhoda as a child which is directly symbolical to
evil.
Secondly, the goodness in the storyline of the novel exists in the characters of Kenneth
and her husband. She goes through the entire plight and even views silently Rhoda killing her
neighbor by putting him into flames though, she does not accept the truth that Rhoda has become
like a hardcore criminal through some external factors.
She is of the view that it is all because of her own mother for whom; she was an adopted
child and who had to suffer electric chair death because of her criminal activities. It is her DNA
which has made Rhoda to receive a bad seed of generation. As for readers, Kenneth stands in
equally good amount to Rhoda; if they like Rhoda for giving them some innovative ways of
understanding the evil in society the child crime, Kenneth represents the ideal mother who does
not let her mind go against her own doughtier and calls for an action against her by committing

suicide. Her action as the representative of goodness is also shown when she tries to provide
overdose of sleeping pills to her own daughter because she does not want her to suffer from trial
and jailing procedures.
Response Two:
There are numerous studies and articles available about analyzing the framework which
March has presented about good and evil in the novel The Bad Seed. Jill Erickson is one of them
who gives an account of too much horror in the fiction. She puts the storyline aligned to the
understanding of the readers and then she tries to convey the message that the story of the novel
covers a great deal of horror to surprise the readers at various points. There is silent horror or
indirect horror in the story because March does not feel that he should give any direct account of
horror to people. Let people understand it by themselves that the emotion of horror is as
necessary as all other emotions of human beings. Even in putting unnatural death in motion for
all the characters killed by Rhoda in the novel, his opinion is stated as, “It seemed to her
suddenly that violence was an inescapable factor of the heart, perhaps the most important factor
of all - an ineradicable thing that lay, like a bad seed, behind kindness, behind compassion,
behind the embrace of love itself. Sometimes it lay deeply hidden, sometimes it lay close to the
surface; but always it was there; ready to appear, under the right conditions, in all its irrational
dreadfulness” (March, 1951)
If seen from Erickson’s perspective, the evil lines in promoting the horror in the novel. It
is more like thinking that suppressed desires or oppression of feelings result in the violent efforts
of young kids to achieve what they want from life. For example, when Rhoda finds that she can
only get the necklace of her choice if the neighborhood lady dies, she deliberately throws her

from the staircase and gets it. When she discovers that the imprints on the face of the boy whom
she killed is now discovered by another neighbor, first she lies but later one, she is again ready to
kill him which she actually does. All the events in the story, according to Erickson are bounded
together in order to give a perfect amount of horror to be planted in the hearts of the readers and
also, March has made efforts to help people realize the thought process of a young human mind
when it goes through uncertain conditions.
Reference
Erickson, Jill, (2012), “Horror of the 60s, 70s and 80s”, too much Horror in Fiction: The Bad
Seed, Retrieved From: http://toomuchhorrorfiction.blogspot.in/2013/06/the-bad-seed-by-william-
march-1954-so.html