Good and Evil Must Intertwine

The passage  "in the poem i wanted...a little bit unlike ourselves," (Mulisch 38), explores the motif of good versus evil, and how the two coexist. While people always feel that they have the good motives that go against evil, the two always become intertwined. They repudiate each other, and yet each always requires the other. the necessity of the two is demonstrated through Mulisch's discussion of light and dark. Darkness is only the absence of light, similarly to evil only having power if there is no good. Light is only seen against darkness, just as good is most obvious when it is in the midst of evil. But why then do good and evil mix, when light and darkness chase each other away? Good and evil cannot battle, if they do not know what they are against. In a war, an army does not use one singular strategy based purely on its own motives. It studies the opponent and then specifies its strategy to the what it learns. However, if both good and evil mix, the only way to know what is truly good and what is truly evil, is to know the source of the motives.