Lions and Serpents and Lambs... Oh My!

Within our society, there are multitudes of different kinds of people. There are criminals, politicians, businessmen, lawyers, nuns, writers, musicians, doctors, artists, teachers, and so many more. With each role comes a different stereotype and a different perceived personality. For instance, we expect criminals to be lying, dangerous individuals and doctors to be passive and truthful people. However, what if the criminal only stole a loaf of bread to feed a starving child, such as Jean Valjean in Les Misérables? What if the doctor is running an insurance scam, or is performing invasive procedures unnecessarily just for the extra cash? Thus, for this analysis, we need to look beyond the boundaries of labels towards the deeper character traits of the individuals themselves. We shall associate these qualities with the lion, the lamb, the serpent and the angel.

The lion is a symbol associated with with power and the capacity for violence, which can be put towards good or evil. For instance, both military men and murders possess lionlike features, but one will only resort to violence in the service of his country while the other will resort to killing or abuse as means of hatred and crime. Star Wars' Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker serve as supreme examples of the maned beast, for they utilize their capacity for violence to destroy the jedi and to protect the galaxy (and they represent the same individual, just at different times in his life, which adds an interesting twist).

The lamb resides on the opposite end of the spectrum from the lion, and represents the most passive, gentile, and pacifistic of creatures. Individuals with lamblike qualities are extremely resistant to violence against any other human beings; however, this can be as a result of both kindliness and cowardice. Ghandi avoided brutality simply because he did not believe it to be a solution to his people's woes, while many young men avoided the Vietnam War military draft because they were too afraid of what the fight might bring.

On another range, there is the serpent and the angel. The serpent represents humanity's potential to lie, while the angel stands for the commitment to honesty in the face of all circumstance. While guardians often mislead with the sole purpose of protecting a child, thieves and adulterers represent deceit in its most debasing form. Angels are the only characters who are not multifaceted beings, for their integrity is deeply weighted in the depths of their moral beings. These winged creatures are just as perceived: the purest of the pure.

In conclusion, there are 4 different types of people in the world, and they vary in their tendency for violence and their capacity for telling untruths. We have our venomous lambs, our winged sheep, our haloed lions, and our scaly felines. Where do you belong? How high or low are your limits for ferocity and fraudulence? Would you murder for the last muffin at Starbucks, or would you only kill out of self defense or familial protection? Would you cheat on a test, or simply lie to protect someone you love from a harmful truth? What kind of person are you?