How does Buffy deconstruct traditional literary notions of good and evil?

The series of Buffy the vampire slayer deconstructs the notions of good and evil by the way its characters interact with each other and complexity of its characters. Buffy is the brave woman of the series who is always in the good side, while Angel belongs to the group of antagonists who are always Buffy’s enemy. However they get a close relationship together. Braum(2000) mentions that Buffy and Angel’s relationship obviously show the pressure between protagonist and antagonism, love and aggression. Each of its characters has a multifaceted personality, meaning one person is neither fully good nor evil. This is the reason why we could say Buffy the vampire slayer series is different from others.

Braun (2000) refers to Klein’s theory which states that this mentality that we have is developed from infancy and that we are conditioned to expect and deal with both “good” and “bad” from our close and loved ones throughout our lives.The Buffy the vampire slayer series contains a very multifaceted relationship between its characters that is incomparable to the traditional good versus evil genre.The complexity of the characters in Buffy the vampire slayer and their relationships demonstrate that each of them is capable of both good deeds and bad which appropriately reflects the complexity of human nature.

FurthermoreBraun (2000) says,Buffy’s full recognition of both the demonic and Angelic aspects of Angel demonstrates a moment of reconciliation of the Kleinian ‘good’ and ‘bad’ into one body. Also, Braun states that main characters have moral ambiguity and they are portrayed as making morally wrong choice which shifts the nature of good and evil.For that result, this complex relationship between Buffy and Angel shows as Braun (2000) mentions “Tangle of psychological and sexual roles and moral positioning does not lead to easy analysis, but it does reflect the complexity of real human personalities and relationships.” I think these moral ambiguity relationships have attracted people to Buffy the vampire slayer. Actually, all of us have both good and evil aspects so they could feel sympathy with this work.

References

Braun, B. (2000) The X-files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The ambiguity of evil in supernatural representationsRetrieved October 6, 2014 fromhttp://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0

412/is_2_28/ai_64688900

Wikipedia. (n.d.). Buffy Studies. Retrieved October 6, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffy_studies/