Does Evil Exist in Realistic Child Characterisation in Literature? Explored through the creation of a novel, The Cuckoo's Nest, a literature survey and the application of psychology and philosophy

The thesis comprises a novel and a critical exegesis. They explore how creative practice can be used to investigate the potentiality of evil in a realistic child character in literature and from where that evil might originate if the character is found to be evil.

The writing of the novel, The Cuckoo's Nest, allows a testing out of the author’s beliefs, emotions, preoccupations, and ideas related to evil. Through such a sustained narrative, there is space to explore a long timeline, and in the case of the novel, the development of a child through nature/nurture and whether that child's behaviour could be considered evil. Such practice-led research is a way of generating new knowledge from a story not previously told.

From an examination of the concept of evil, my test of evil, based upon previous tests of evil, is used to determine whether the child protagonist in the novel is truly evil. This means their behaviour must encompass an evil act with evil intention where there is no defence. The test of evil is also used to establish the presence of evil in a selection of realistic child characters who sit within the trope of the Evil Child in Literature from the 1950s to current times.

The thesis challenges prior views of evil in fictional characterisation where some commentators claim that evil exists only in supernormal and supernatural characters. The child protagonist in The Cuckoo’s Nest is realistic, like children are in real life, and in line with the Evil Children in Literature examined through a literature survey.
The result was not as expected. The children in the literature survey, including the child protagonist of The Cuckoo’s Nest, turned out not to be truly evil as they had a defence.