The Normalization of Evil Actions in Doctorow's City of God

Abstract

This thesis is a study of normalization of evil actions in Doctorow's City of God from a phisosophic point of view. The novel deals with the concepts of good and evil in the contemporary world, defining the most different types of evil actions, from natural evil to world wars. This work focuses on the normalization of evil actions in the B-movie script written by Everett, the novel's narrator; on the evil acts presented by a veteran in his monologue about the Vietnam War; on the ex-Times guy story; and on the Second Word war account. The concepts of evi, evil action, moral reality, and normalization of evil actions used in this dissertation follow the concepts discussed by Augustine of Hippo, Friedrich Nietzsche, Immanuel Kant, and other contemporary philosophers. The emphasis in on how City of God's characters perceive their evil actions and how their victims normalize these actions. City of God shows that a victim's constant expousere to evil leads to its normalization, which ultimately, creates a state of indifference, in which evil becomes routine and fails to shock and to promote change.