Thomas Keneally presents Schindler’s story as a battle of the human potential for good and evil. The good is pragmatic and practical, while the evil is absolute, with no concern for what’s practical or pragmatic. The author situates these differing approaches to life by good and evil through how various characters approach money, black-market dealings, vices, and their relationship to the Nazi regime. Keneally is careful not to make his examples of good and evil larger-than-life; they’re people who are separated from the other side by a thin barrier. This results in a black-and-white battle of good and evil that doesn’t take combatants out of their context as people who lived at one point in history. Keneally’s approach allows him to dramatize a good-versus-evil context from history without stripping the authentic historical figures of their lives as complex people.

Schindler’s pragmatic good doesn’t put him above being a not-so-good person in other regards. Schindler’s virtue is “strange” because he has many vices that would be considered hallmarks of an indecent person. Schindler has an alcohol dependency, which biases against addicts often lead people to think of them as somehow lesser individuals morally. Keneally leans on this anti-addict bias to make Schindler appear a less good person because of alcoholism.