In my current novel study You Know I’m No Good the main character, Mia, proposes a question of why good people die, while bad people get the privilege of living a longer life. I chose to write on this topic because I know that it is a common question that is asked yet has never received just one answer.
As Mia is sent to a rehabilitation center for struggled teens, she begins a process of self reflection. These reflections are based on the bad behaviors she exhibited, which included actions of punching her step-mother, getting into drugs and alcohol, alongside participating in promiscuous activities. This is what guides Mia to create this rhetorical question with the belief that she is a bad person who deserves to die.
To start simply, what makes someone a good person? Everyone has different ideas about what qualities make up someone who is good, which is why the given question is open ended. My personal belief is that everyone dies, regardless of their character. The death of good people is perceived as more common because people tend to care more about the death of those they consider to be good people, meaning more emphasis is placed on the death of good over bad people. An example of this can be seen in the novel The Great Gatsby when nobody shows up to Gatsby’s funeral because the whole of society believed he was a bad guy for “killing” Myrtle. If the circumstances were varied and Gatsby was seen as innocent in society’s eyes, all opinions and feelings would have switched, becoming more solemn and sympathetic. Countless people die every day; there is no such thing as only good people dying. People mourn the loss of good because they think that they deserved more time alive than those who were -in their eyes- bad. They have this concept in their head that good people are more important and contribute more to the world than someone who is “bad”, which isn’t necessarily true. Good people are held up on a pedestal while others are thrown to the side and labeled as insignificant
All in all, there will always be different answers to this question based on an individual’s beliefs and experiences, with no answer being correct or incorrect. Death is an inevitable occurrence that everybody experiences.
Citations:
https://www.peoplematters.in/blog/watercooler/responding-to-being-left-out-important-meetings-14994