Justifying Evil
By David Corbett | November 4, 2014 |
Photographer Unknown
No, this isn’t another post about the Amazon-Hachette imbroglio.
I recently took part (along with WU’s Donald Maas) in the Surrey International Writers Conference outside Vancouver, absolutely one of the best literary powwows I’ve ever attended, and I’ve been to scads. (Sadly, I’m unable to attend the WU Un-conference beginning today. I have no doubt it’s even powwowier!)
One of the workshops I gave at the Surrey conference was titled Beyond Good and Evil: Using Moral Argument to Develop Plot & Character.
Moral argument as a structural device expands the thematic range of the conflict from a battle of individuals to a contest of moral visions. Each character is seen as seeking to create, maintain, or defend a way of life – an idea of what it means to live well among others – and if the conflict in the story is crafted well, these ways of life are ultimately antithetical.
This is what Lajos Egri (The Art of Dramatic Writing) meant by the Unity of Opposites – a tightly woven conflict in which the protagonist and the opponent (or the problem/challenge the protagonist faces) are inextricably bound together, so that escape or compromise is impossible. Either the opponent must be defeated (or the problem solved, the challenge met), or the protagonist fails in a shattering, life-changing way – in a sense, she dies, if not physically then emotionally, morally, professionally.
But the stakes are also ultimate for the opponent – otherwise the protagonist’s victory or success is diminished. A hero who overcomes a facile, underdeveloped or unconvincing opponent – or solves an unimpressive problem, meets a humdrum challenge – will fail to engage the reader in a memorable way.
[pullquote]We need to see life through the eyes of someone we would most likely flee, berate, or even despise if we made their actual acquaintance. [/pullquote]
To stage conflict meaningfully the stakes have to be ultimate for all concerned, and this requires understanding the opponent’s perspective just as fully as the protagonist’s.
This requires that we justify – not judge – our opponent’s worldview. We can’t remain outside this character, feeling toward him but not for him. Stepping into his shoes is just the beginning. Sooner or later, we have to inhabit his heart and soul.
This often means we need to see life through the eyes of someone we would most likely flee, berate, or even despise if we made their actual acquaintance. And this requires that we not just accept but champion, embrace — dare I say it, love — someone we consider fundamentally mistaken, hurtful, even evil.
I know. Writers have all the fun.
And yet…
As one of my students at the conference noted, doesn’t this mean that we as writers become essentially amoral?
I responded that it’s important we recognize the difference between understanding the opponent’s behavior and condoning it.
[pullquote]Just because I can understand or even empathize with a killer doesn’t mean I want him walking free. [/pullquote]
This difference came up vividly in one of my manuscript reviews, where the writer, a former nurse, was basing her tale on an event she herself witnessed, involving a doctor whose willful negligence led to a patient’s death.
Her problem, she admitted, was that her feelings toward this doctor, whom she described as arrogant, spiteful, greedy, and fundamentally dishonest, was in fact limiting her portrayal of him. She couldn’t even discuss him without palpable – and understandable — disgust and contempt.
At which point I suggested something extreme. I wondered if she’d ever consider forgiving him.
I was grateful when she didn’t recoil – or smack me with her notebook. Rather, she let the idea sink in, and I could see her body change as she thought it through, relaxing a little, as though to reflect rather than do battle.
We went on to discuss the truly terrifying aspect of evil – the fact that it isn’t monstrous, but eminently human. The people we hate, the people we must defeat, are not unlike ourselves. That doesn’t make the need to oppose and defeat them any less imperative. It just colors the engagement more meaningfully, even tragically.
I used to work criminal defense, so this subject has particular resonance for me. I had not just drug dealers and thieves as clients but killers as well. More than once I had to talk to a murder victim’s family face-to-face, and try to balance both my professional obligation to my client and my understanding of the terrible loss these people had endured, the outrage they felt, and their justifiable desire for vengeance. Just because I can understand or even empathize with a killer doesn’t mean I want him walking free. But if he spends his life in prison, or is put to death, I want it to be the evidence, not blind passion, that decides the matter.
[pullquote]The truly terrifying aspect of evil is that it’s eminently human.[/pullquote]
Seeking balance in the moral scales doesn’t mean avoiding stories where one side is clearly pursuing something you or your readers would most likely consider wrong—or even when both sides are morally compromised. But it does mean submerging yourself in the wrongdoer’s world and finding the justification that permits him to see his actions as not merely advantageous, but morally just and logically correct.
Even war and crime stories, where it’s often easiest to succumb to the good-versus-evil temptation, needn’t be reduced to moralistic simplicities, and the best are not.
Arguably the greatest battle in all of literature doesn’t pit Michael the Archangel against Lucifer, Saint George against the dragon, Uncle Sam against Hitler, or concern any other contest where only a deviant would root for the wrong side. It’s Achilles’s combat with Hector outside the walls of Troy. Neither warrior elicits our complete allegiance or enmity. Both, however, inspire us with their courage and skill. And when Achilles slays Hector, then desecrates his body, tying it to his chariot and dragging it around the city’s walls so all the Trojans can bear witness, he reminds us that the Greeks are not unqualified heroes. War honors not just valor but viciousness and hate.
Richard Price’s Clockers forever raised the bar for crime writers not just because of its realism, its pitch-perfect dialogue, or the vividness of its details, but because its two adversaries, the drug dealer Strike Dunham and the detective Rocco Klein, are permitted equal moral footing. We fully inhabit both their worlds, and root for each of them, though in distinctly different ways.
And yet (I hear you cry), doesn’t the reader deserve her catharsis? How can that come off if the climactic battle leaves her ambivalent, wondering if she didn’t misplace her allegiance?
This misunderstands the moral significance of regret. There are a great many things we must do even if we’d prefer to have done otherwise. A protagonist who defeats an opponent for whom we do not lack sympathy merely reminds us that every battle involves another human being. It’s not such a terrible truth to remember.
Who are your favorite opponents/villains? Do you love them because you can so readily understand them, or because they’re in fact so utterly different from anything or anyone you’ve ever encountered?
What makes an opponent more compelling – the fact that he could easily be one of us, or the fact he so clearly stands apart?
Do you find your opponents and villains easier to write than your heroes? Is that because you can easily empathize with them? Or is it because of something else?
David Corbett (he/him) is the author of seven novels: The Devil’s Redhead, Done for a Dime (a New York Times Notable Book), Blood of Paradise (nominated for numerous awards, including the Edgar, Do They Know I’m Running?, The Mercy of the Night, The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday, and The Truth Against the World. He has also published the story collection Thirteen Confessions and the novella The Devil Prayed and Darkness Fell.
David’s short fiction and poetry have appeared in a broad array of magazines and anthologies, with pieces twice selected for Best American Mystery Stories.
His non-fiction has appeared in numerous venues, including the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Narrative, Zyzzyva, MovieMaker, The Writer, and Writer’s Digest.
He has taught both online and in classroom settings through the UCLA Extension’s Writers’ Program, Book Passage, LitReactor, 826 Valencia, The Grotto in San Francisco, and at numerous writing conferences across the US, Canada, and Mexico. In January 2013 Penguin published his textbook on the craft of characterization, The Art of Character (“A writer’s bible that will lead to your character’s soul.” —Elizabeth Brundage), and Writer’s Digest published his follow-up, The Compass of Character, in October 2019.
Wonderful article, and thank you for posting it! I am working through the second draft of a novel, and this is the perfect reminder to look deeper into the shadows that lurk in my opponent’s soul.
Much appreciated!
Nancy
Good luck with that search, Nancy. And take care of yourself. Sometimes going to those dark places can feel overwhelming, and at the end of the writing day it’s sometimes not a bad idea to take a walk in the open air, spend time with your loved ones, or do something else pleasant that returns you to psychological and emotional balance.
This is an excellent article; thanks for the reminder.
My current book is set during the days of slavery in the Caribbean. As a descendant of those slaves, this has been an…interesting experience.
To really do this book justice, I have to get inside the slave owners’ heads and figure out how one could sell a slave woman’s children away from her in the morning, then go home and enjoy time with his wife and children in the evening. I’ve had wrap my mind around the fact that though Thistlewood was a sadist and a serial rapist, in the grand scheme of things, he was a benevolent slave owner. He gave his slaves a lot of free time to tend to their own matters, and they were able to marry and own property.
And I really appreciate the distinction between understanding something and condoning it. Again, well done.
Hi, Maya:
There are some evils that seem to defy the kind of understanding I’ve suggested, and slavery is one of them. It offends the conscience so absolutely that the mind and heart just recoil at the very thought of trying to get into the mindset of someone who thinks of another human being as property. And yet, as troubling as it is to admit, it’s the absence of slavery that’s the exception in human history, and is even sanctioned by the Bible (an argument slave owners made repeatedly in their own defense).
I wonder if Thistlewood doesn’t silence his conscience with just such a justification. Slavery is the way of the world, and has been since the dawn of time. Some men are simply stronger, that’s why they’re history’s victors, and greatness lies in using that strength wisely. This means treating my slaves well. Freeing my slaves would be abandoning them — they’d just be captured and enslaved by someone else. God has given me my station in life, and my job is not to question it — that would be a sin — but to accept the responsibilities of my God-given station and rule with a firm hand (because order is necessary) but also with benevolence (which further demonstrates my greater nature and reinforces the legitimacy of my rule).
I came across this mindset when I traveled in Central America. I’d never encountered class consciousness like that before, where the wealthy just assume the rightness of their higher station without question, and look on the poor not only as somewhat less than human, but as a constant threat that must be suppressed at all cost. There was a kind of moral blindness about them that was truly jaw-dropping — and yet they were also exceedingly generous, helpful, and kind to me.
Human beings. We’re a tricky lot.
Thank you for your thoughtful and in depth reply. And for bringing up the long history of slavery throughout civilization. Human kind will always find a way to oppress each other. Admitting that doesn’t lessen the impact of say, Transatlantic slavery, the Holocaust, war, etc.
My book is set in the 18th century, and I also have to look at things through the lens of the Enlightenment and the beginnings of our definition of race, and therefore, racism. Your experience in Central America highlights much of the thinking at that time; that there was a natural hierarchy to things and anything contrary was against nature. A lot of what was perfectly acceptable at that time flies in the face of 21st century thinking. I’ve had say to myself ‘Yes, it was wrong, no doubt about it, but I can’t take the easy way out. I have to strive to understand’.
It’s been a mind trip so far, but it’s pushing me to my limits as a writer and that’s not a bad thing.
Maya,
While reading David’s reply to Maya, “There are some evils that seem to defy the kind of understanding I’ve suggested, and slavery is one of them,” my first thought was that slave masters areas difficult to understand as a mass murders, rapists, or a serial killers. Not that difficult than are some members of Congress. I’m glad David saved me from writing some words by mentioning the presence of slavery throughout time and across cultures. I believe good fiction should be true to its characters and setting—be it in the past, present, or imagined future. A good story should be how you truly interpret your characters—their inner lives, struggles, their failures, and their accomplishments.
Sure, you’re imagining—creating—a fictional world with people who never existed, but your story still must be a true. I think it’s necessary to be true, but when you treat villains other than as one dimensional caricatures, you can run into serious trouble. Sometimes you need to be careful when writing about slavery, or any other forms of intuitional cruelty in the past. Actually, you can run into the same problem with a story set in the 21st century, or set in the future. But write we must.
Maybe you’re familiar with Chester Himes (1909 – 1980). Maybe not. Himes wasn’t a great writer, but he knew how to tell a story. Loved his stories when I was a young man—a time when there were few African American fiction writers. One of my favorite quotes about writing come from Chester Himes: “One will make more enemies by trying to be fair than by trying to tell the truth—no one believes is possible to tell the truth anyway—but it is just possible that you might be fair.”
To write your story the way it comes to you, and then revise and edit it to perfection, you’re gonna have to say [not sure what words are allowed on this site, so fill in the blank with whatever is appropriate] “this is my story and _________ the way somebody else wants me to have written it.” You’ll do great.
Wishing you the best.
Lamont: Thanks for mentioning Chester Himes. A genius. And funny as hell. Literally.
David,
A thought came to me while exercising: there’s a big difference between understanding the inner-live and motivation of a villain, as in The Reader, by Bernahard Schlink, and becoming the villain, as in American Psycho, by Bret Easton Ellis.
Man, I hope you don’t post anything insightful ever again—at least not soon. Thinking about your post has kept me from doing other important stuff. Just kidding. Other than family and close friends, what can be more important than thinking.
Wishing you the best.
My greatest wish, Lamont, like every writer’s, is to keep you up at night. (Thanks for the attaboy.)
Thank you so much for your eloquent reply. I truly appreciate it.
Conducting research for this book has reminded me that there are very few things in life that are black and white. There are grey areas, and several shades of those too. Your comments about writing the book they way it comes to me resonate deeply with me. My book is set in Jamaica and 18th century society there was very complex.
Maya,
Don’t let history distract you. Right now I can’t give you a lot about writing in a historical setting because there’s a lot involved with that. For now, don’t try to think as a historian or a sociologist. Think story only. You’re a fiction writer; it’s OK to make up shit and revise it to historical accuracy later. For now, find you story as you’re drafting it. Lots of work but worth it. As they say, whoever “they” are, if it were easy everybody would be doing it. Takes time, but the same amount of time will pass if you write your novel or don’t write it. So, get to work and stop thinking so much about the problematic stuff. Once you have a few drafts, you’ll have worked through all that. Promise. Let me know if you ever need help.
One thing that I find refreshing and surprising about Shakespeare’s plays is not only his complex portrayal of evil but his antagonists’ capacity for regret and repentance, rooted partly in the Elizabethan practice of the confessional. He knew, as you are saying, Dave, that within us all are the seeds of murder, self-aggrandizement, adultery, abuse, greed. I suspect, however, that his audience was much more unified in their view of what is right and wrong.
We writers have a different audience today. The confessional is tucked out of sight in North American culture, as is an agreed-upon baseline of morality. Morality and political correctness do not often run on parallel tracks, and this is confusing to a lot of kids who are searching for a solid place to stand and view this amazing but turbulent and broken world. Stories can give them glimpses of what it’s like to do battle with evil—whether in a fantasy world or in the classrooms of their own junior high.
Not morality tales, but stories about hard choices, confusing and conflicting points of view, and an understanding of good and evil that transcends our current culture’s confused perspective and rises to touch something eternal, a place greater than simply the current view of what’s acceptable behavior, the place of mystery and virtue at the core of this life.
My antagonist makes his first appearance as a vague, boogeyman figure—the shadow of two booted feet standing on the other side of a flimsy door, his daughter clutching a knife and waiting to see if he will break in. My challenge is to slowly reveal this abusive father to my readers as a man driven by his desire to control others, addicted to anger—and yet a man who has at times tenderly touched his daughter, who at one time felt at least a faint tug of compassion for his wife and son. Not sure if I want to do that, but truth calls me to it, as you’ve reminded us.
Thanks for the encouragement and depth of thought you led me to in your post. I’m working my way through your book on character development as well—really good stuff. Deep thanks.
That’s marvelously and beautifully put, Ed. One of Shakespeare’s cleverest tricks — and one used by House of Cards — is to let the evil-doer talk directly to the audience. Iago. Richard III. As they lie to everyone in the play, they speak honestly to us, and it magically builds a bond of trust that permits us to see the villain from within.
The phrase that caught my eye in your description of your story’s opponent is “addicted to anger.” Anger is a way to seize power, and it speaks to a deep sense of powerlessness, something men fear especially, because they so often see themselves as isolated, cut off from the human community. And this father may also feel powerless against his compulsion. This may create an opportunity for the insight and regret you value so highly, as do I.
Good luck with the exploration.
Excuse me — I meant Edi, not Ed. Time to put in my contacts, I think.
As a writer who enjoys exploring the relativity of truth, your post on exploring the human side of the villain has given me much to think about today, especially with regard to clashing beliefs about how one ought to live one’s life. To add something I’ve picked up: a character does not have to be likeable, but they must be relatable. What is evil but the outward trappings of conflicting worldviews at play, and what is fiction but a means of going deeper and exploring the most disturbing – yet possibly liberating – truth that for all the things in life we cringe at the solution is to gain insight. Thats is why I read fiction, and the attitude I bring on board when I write it.
Hi, John:
I’m prone to agree, and yet I also realize that one of the hallmarks of evil is its capacity to justify itself — which I know sounds like I’m contradicting my own argument, but bear with me.
As a writer of fiction, I need to understand not only how and why a person would do hurtful, even cruel or vicious things, I need to know how they explain their behavior to themselves. (See my reply to Maya’s comment about her slaveowner opponent).
Most of what we consider evil is based in a selfish belief that we matter more than other people. We’re exceptional, and the rules don’t apply to us the way they do to others. This is why condemning the sin of pride is so central to western ethics.
So if I’m writing a character who has this mindset, I have to own that character’s sense of superiority. A healthy ego isn’t necessarily bad. But that can be used as a convenient excuse to justify truly terrible things.
But once the writing is done I need to step back, regain my senses, as it were, and reorient my own moral compass.
Part of the insight you and I both love about fiction is its ability to demonstrate how we as human beings trick ourselves into believing our wickedness is really a testament to our virtue. I’m not being cruel and insensitive, I’m being strong and free. And as a writer I need to know that about my character. But I also, hopefully, don’t succumb to that illogic myself.
A beautiful emphasis on what, I think, is at the core of evil: “me first”. When a worldview forms around this cognitive distortion, especially in isolation, the underlying beliefs by which a person ticks can be extremely dissonant to the collective fabric of society. Often, that “me first”, though, comes from inner pain, alienation, abandonment – things the leave a person to feel alone and that their only means of survival, on a psychological level, is essentially for their self to survive. Such beliefs, perpetuated, without intervention, can be disastrous, and for this reason evil is ultimately, to me, sad.
Hi, John:
That’s a great insight. I agree that selfishness can and often does arise from woundedness, and is a reaction to the profound fear or sense of isolation/abandonment aroused by that wound. The selfishness or narcissism is in fact a form of denial, a way to erase the vulnerability created by the wound.
But there is also organic selfishness, as in sociopathy. I highly recommend CONFESSIONS OF A SOCIOPATH by M.E. Thomas. Eye-opening. Disturbing. Thought-provoking. It’s hypothesized that a great many high-functioning professionals — surgeons, lawyers, bankers — are actually diagnosable sociopaths. They aren’t violent because they’re driven to succeed, and violence would undermine that. They adhere to social norms and moral codes in order to fit in. But they’re main focus is self-gratification, and their sense of superiority is invincible.
That’s when evil isn’t sad. It’s scary. Because it’s nature’s way of creating a class of people who refuse to fail.
Great post, David. The bad guys in my stories all have a little bit of me in them. St. Bernard of Clairvaux said, hell is full of good wishes and desires … I like thinking about how good people manage to convince themselves of doing the most dastardly things. So yes, my favorite villains tend to be people who could easily be one of us.
HI, Vijaya:
I love that quote. And yet it also points out a moral dilemma that many people of good conscience face. By understanding that evil often results from the best of intentions, we can question ourselves into a state of indecision — which makes us easy prey to those without any such qualms. Often heroes begin their stories in exactly this kind of reticence, and must come to some form of clarity that permits them, finally, to act decisively.
Making our evil-doers human and comprehensible forces us to think more deeply about our own natures. I personally find this more engaging as a reader. But there are certainly some who prefer their wickedness cut-and-dried, so they can enjoy a story where morality is far less gray than in the world we all inhabit. This is entertainment as escape and wish fulfillment, and there’s nothing wrong with it — unless that’s all we get. Then there’s a slightly amoral taint to it, as though we’re pretending life isn’t as complex as it really is, and our readers are too indifferent to care.
Good luck with those all-too-human “dastards.”
Thank you, David, for a really interesting point of view. It reminded me of my approach/avoidance relationship to the TV series, The Sopranos. In this case, it was the protag who was, essentially, a really bad guy. But you couldn’t help but be drawn to his story. Certainly, part of the draw was the plot, but a lot was also the complexity of his character.
Tony Soprano reawakened the antihero in the American imagination, and his kind has multiplied exponentially (at least on cable TV) since that series first aired — Walter White, Ray Donovan, Frank Underwood, Patty Hewes, etc.
The trick to portraying an antihero is to understand he’s not just morally flawed (like many heroes are), he’s morally divided, with both the angel and the devil within him educing it out on a moment-by-moment basis. That’s his intrigue — we never know for sure whether we’re going to get Good Tony or Bad Tony.
The other thing that made Tony Soprano so interesting was his humor, his lusty appetites(s), his vulnerability (his mother would drive anyone over the edge), and his genuine devotion to his family, or at least his children. (Rule of thumb: If you’re afraid a character is too unlikable, give him a kid or a dog.)
He also possessed insight, which the therapy sessions helped explore. As the series went on, it became clear that Tonys insight was truly sociopathic, and that he was using the therapy as a way to legitimize his own behavior in his own mind. This is why Dr. Melfi kicked him to the curb — she realized that sociopaths not only don’t benefit from therapy, it actually worsens their behavior. But this came to light near the end of the show, when it was time for Tony’s bad acts to catch up with him. In the beginning, the therapy provided a way to reveal Tony’s inner life, and that helped us empathize with an unapologetic criminal.
This is exactly what makes it so wrenching for me to switch to a different pov in the following scene.
I have three pov characters – each quite different from the others in his/her moral position about our own world. I can’t write a scene well until I ‘become the pov character’ and that is a fairly massive undertaking each time I switch, because I am a very slow writer, and spend a lot of time getting a scene just right before I move on.
I go back, read the last couple of scenes, and then re-read the last couple of scenes FROM the pov character’s head. Then I remember why this character, put on the moral viewpoint like a full set of body armor, and I can write.
Even the position that is closest – not identical – to my own is hard to write. We don’t normally have to spend so much time justifying ourselves.
Great topic.
Alicia
Hi, Alicia:
I hope the hard work is paying off. Sometimes the character closest to our own POV seems like the easiest to write, but in the end turns out to be the one we did least well. Normally because we don’t do the hard work with that character that you’re doing — we have blind spots, not realizing that some things aren’t coming across on the page. That’s because we’re just assuming they’re coming across because we feel them implicitly. (This is a common protagonist problem.)
Good luck, and own your process. One of the most important things to learn as a writer is to accept how you go about your writing, and stop beating yourself up because you don’t go about your writing day like Doris Lessing, or Amy Tan, or …..
Don’t worry – every day I type Trust the Process – and proceed at my own pace.
It is MY process – and it works. I have never once been unhappy at the results that come from spending more time digging deep into a scene. It can take what seems like forever because of my own physical problems – but the time is well spent.
When you can do things only one way, it doesn’t matter, IF the way works. Fewer decisions. Just do your own steps in your own happy dance.
Just yesterday I was rereading your notes from the SIWC workshop (unfortunately I couldn’t stay to the end because of an appointment) so was pleased to see your post about it this morning. I’ve been trying to look at my current WIP through the Moral Argument lens to see if I can enhance the conflict in my murder mysteries.
I don’t do blatant “evil” in my stories. In traditional mysteries, you have to keep the reader guessing, so the motives are often subtle and the murderers often otherwise “good” people who have made poor choices. I suppose that just means they’re human, or as you put it, “could easily be one of us.” Not only the hero’s behavior, but also the behavior of the decidedly unvillainous villains is affected by their moral flaws. I do feel that makes for a more compelling character, but I’ll have to try getting inside their heads a little more than I have.
It was a thought provoking workshop and a good post today. Thank you.
Thanks, R.E. You point out two distinct types of murderers — the kind who blunder into their violence then cover it up, hoping they can escape punishment, and those whose previous misjudgments have forced them into a corner where they think only murder can solve the problem they’ve created (rather than accepting responsibility for their errors). Both are eminently human, though the latter feels decidedly more cold-blooded.
David,
Enjoyed your post “Justifying Evil.” There are too many “villains” I loved as characters for me to select one off the top of my head. Don’t get me wrong; I didn’t love them or appreciate their harm to others, but I loved how the writers characterized their villians by giving them internal lives and personal goals. I’ve been to war, done time in maximum security prisons, and worked as an A&D counselor for newly released parolees. So, with evil characters, it’s nearly impossible to find something about them that does not resemble someone I’ve met. And I’ve had my own moral struggles. Can’t recall who said it, and I might be misquoting a little, “The evil we clearly see in others we can dimly perceive in ourselves.”
As a fiction writer, it’s important to create evil characters with some redeeming qualities. In order to go unnoticed and survive socially, psychopaths must pretend that they have redeeming qualities. Even when the behavior is purely self-serving, an evil character occasionally does some small thing that’s kind or generous, and those pretentious acts help amplify the evilness. I also think a story is more compelling when the “hero” is struggling with her or his own internal conflicts. I don’t like my heroes too good, unless they’re children.
Maybe some writers and readers object to fully developed evil characters because they want moral conflict to be simpler than it is.
Thanks for the post.
Lamont Wilkins
Hi, Lamont:
Thanks for chiming in. Like you, I prefer stories where the moral lines become blurred, leading to a recognition that innocence (except in children, as you note) is an illusion. This underlies our notions of original sin and existential guilt, and recognizes that we can never truly know all the ramifications of our actions — or our failure to act. Moral ambiguity is the water we swim in. But that doesn’t mean we can’t strive to be a bit more honest, a bit braver, and bit more caring. So too with characters, even morally tainted ones.
And I sometimes think it’s important to distinguish between immoral acts and an immoral nature. Even heroes can act immorally, though we normally want to see them prevail despite such deeds, not because of them. Or, if that’s not the case, we want some sort of reckoning, or at least some sign of recognition on the hero’s part of what he’s done, with the insight he knows what it means.
As for quotes, I’m a fan of the old saw from Nietzsche: “He who fights with monsters should look to it that he does not become a monster himself. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.”
David,
The quote that I might have butchered into being paraphrase is probably by Pascal. I really appreciate all the comments on your post. I’m new to the blogosphere and am glad I found WU.
David, reading your post I immediately thought of Lolita’s protagonist, Humbert Humbert, who staked a claim to the amoral hall of fame. He is a cunning pederast, but is utterly charming in so many ways, and eloquently justifies his pursuit (and capture) of Lolita as compelled by a rapturous love. Lust finds its tangled way in there too.
Many people were appalled at the surface premise of the book, but I think it’s a masterpiece. Nabokov’s use of language is electrifying.
Speaking of Humbert: “You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.”
I think you meant pedophile, not pederast, but I get what you’re saying. Humbert — like Iago and Richard III — beguiles us by speaking directly to us. And yes, the book caused wait a stir. I believe one publisher rejected it with words to the effect: “Good God, man, I can’t publish this, we’ll all go to jail.”
I also agree it’s brilliant, and it reveals another technique for creating empathy for an unlikable character: Show him something he desperately wants then show him failing to get it.
Dang, yep, got my peds wrong. But what’s some perversion flipping among friends? And yes, HH does have Lolita for a while, but he never really has her, because he can’t absorb her, body and soul, as he wants. It’s worth saying that the book is hilarious as well, which is also a means by which an author can ensnare a reader despite having a morally dubious protagonist.
Absolutely. Humor is a great device for luring the reader in, especially with a character they might otherwise find off-putting. Insight and humor are both great tools for generating empathy, and HH has both.
David–
I didn’t get to your must-read post until after five P.M. my time, and haven’t read others’ comments, so please (as you asked your R.N. student to do) consider forgiving me if I’m repeating others.
I believe you have pointed to one of the attributes of novels that are not only good, or successful in the marketplace, but are “big” books. Long ago, John Gardner wrote a commentary titled On Moral Fiction. Part of his argument–and I agree with it–is that no book-length narrative can be morally neutral, free of values, etc. There are just too many authorial choices to be made for a novel writer to ever conceal her sense of morality.
As you so accurately say, though, consciously choosing to pit world view against world view is something else. Here, the writer doesn’t just assume we all share the same values and pit good against evil, right against wrong, but takes on the much more demanding task of seeing beyond disgust or admiration, to see both sides in a more complete fashion. The great photo at the beginning of your post–Nazi soldiers playing with a dog?–points the way. Nazis saw themselves as children of destiny, dubbed by the demands of history to carry out a worldwide transformation, one sanctioned by long-since-discredited notions of social Darwinism, etc. To see them on their own terms is what the writer who takes up wartime in that era–that is, the writer who wants to write a big book–must do.
Thanks again. This post deserves to be kept in every writer’s “favorites” list.
Thanks, Barry. Yeah, I chose that picture because it echoes my advice concerning how to create empathy for an unlikable character: Give him a kid or a dog. Works, don’t it?
And yet there’s also that great line from O. Henry: “And I never yet saw a man that was overfond of horses and dogs but what was cruel to women.”
I’m currently reading On Moral Fiction, and though I agree with his premise I find his argument impenetrable at times, and the writing needlessly opaque. I also think he misreads Sartre and Freud, the great bugbears of the right, to create straw men he can easily knock down. But I haven’t finished it yet and he may end up redeeming himself. Or his argument.
But I also agree that the aversion to a moral premise indicative of a lot of fiction is nothing but a form of cowardice masquerading as sophistication. (BTW: You might enjoy Kenan Malik’s THE QUEST FOR A MORAL COMPASS: A Global History of Ethics. It makes a similar argument but in terms of philosophy, and is a much easier but no less insightful read. There’s also a great essay by David Foster Wallace titled “E Unibus Pluram” about the emptiness or irony as a dramatic trope, but the genuine difficulty in moving beyond it to a credible moral form of storytelling that doesn’t just try to revert to the old verities, because TV and postmodernism have created a level of self-reflexive thinking that we can’t escape.)
Anyhoo. Forgive my babbling. Thanks again for the kind words.
David–
Thanks for the book referral, I’ll take a look. What you say about “cowardice masquerading as sophistication” makes a great deal of sense to me. It fits with recent literary criticism, and it goes well with what you say Wallace sees as the self-reflexive modern sensibility.
I think of the “trope” of irony relied on to evade moral choices as the product of a need to arm against any charge of being naïve. That is anathema to most putative intellectuals. What could be worse??? Better to stick with literary/cultural relativism, even when it leads someone to refuse to condemn, say, female genital mutilation in North African countries. After all, a case can be made for anything, right? All this surely explains the persistent popularity of most crime fiction, written from a hundred-year-old set of givens. We want stability and certainty, even when people of conscience can no longer have them easily.
Hey David. I mused upon this in a recent post myself. The problem with making a villain one-dimensional (evil being the dimension) is that it feels manipulative, not cathartic, to the reader.
OTOH, some “sympathy for the devil” creates cross-currents of emotion in the reader which makes the whole experience deeper on a subterranean level. That’s what we want.
Nice post.
Thanks for chiming in, Jim. I like the idea of a catharsis actually REQUIRING more depth in the opponent. The assumption always seems to be that drawing the moral lines in stark black-and-white lets the reader know exactly where she stands. And we always think the audience wants to hiss at the villain, and that easier when he’s dastardly, as Vijaya said.
But you’re right, if the fight looks rigged there’s no real emotional pay-off.
Also, an opponent who seems capable of good as well as evil permits a wider range of emotional swings. One minute we see him acting gently, thoughtfully, even kindly — and this makes his selfishness, violence or cruelty especially intense because it feels unexpected, creating those cross-currents of emotion you’re talking about.
David,
I enjoyed your post! It’s set me thinking about my own novel’s antagonists.
Your observation about Achilles and Hector in the Iliad reminded me of my recent reading of The Worm Ouroboros by E.R. Eddison. Like the Greeks and Trojans, the lords of Demonland and Witchland in Eddison’s book are not “good guys” and “bad guys” but “the heroes” and “the enemy land’s heroes.” The novel portrays admirable and ugly qualities on both sides, and devotes many whole chapters to events among the main characters’ enemies.
Part of what makes this kind of portrayal possible, I believe, is that both the Iliad and The Worm Ouroborous are set in heroic cultures, where the moral spectrum is less “good vs. evil” and more “honorable vs. shameful.”
As another person commented above about Shakespeare, in the Judeo-Christian moral framework regret, confession, and repentance challenge the reader to identify with the villain and to recognize evil within himself. In many stories I’ve read, there’s a common thread between the antagonist’s villainy and the protagonist’s weakness. The reader is encouraged to recognize the potential for evil in the protagonist.
My own work in progress is set in the early middle ages in a kingdom newly converted to Christianity. There’s a clash of two moral systems, and the antagonist justifies his actions to himself by the standards of the earlier heroic culture. I’m still refining how this works itself out in the story, but the existence of different standards–for example, in how different characters think about vengeance–has made for interesting writing.
Hi, Erin:
You touch on a crucial point when you identify the thread between the opponent’s villainy and the hero’s weakness. This creates a strong psychological bond between the adversaries, and also creates a great way for the hero to demonstrate growth while engaging in the conflict within the story. He HAS to grow and overcome his weakness to defeat the villain.
There’s a wonderful novel about the Vikings called THE LONG SHIPS that portrays the culture clash not only between the pagan Norsemen and Christian missionaries but also between them and Muslim slaveowners (when they’re taken prisoner in Spain). It’s also interesting that St. Patrick managed to convert all of Ireland from Celtic paganism to Christianity in the span of just a couple of decades — a conversion that led to a dramatic rise in literacy in Ireland. One intriguing fact about the early middle ages is that there was a plague across Europe decimating the population in the fourth and fifth centuries (if I have the timeframe right), and this facilitated the turn away from old “heroic” gods and their ethos of honor and battle to a god of love and compassion. (A monotheistic god also helped justify monarchy and single, powerful kings.)
Nietzsche’s BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL argued for a return to a heroic ethos and a disavowal of Christian selflessness, which he felt had emasculated western culture. So that contrast and conflict is ripe for exploration. Good luck. Sounds fascinating.
This is one of the best posts I’ve ever read here. Interesting, meaty, intriguing, filled with thought provoking information that has made me think, and think again.
Why thank you, McKenzie.
Oh man, villains are some of my favorite to write, specifically because they allow me to explore the sparks of depravity that we all have buried down deep. My favorite villains are the ones who are completely confident in the morality of their own actions (Of course, their moral compass may point quite a different direction than the protagonist, but that’s part of the fun). Great post.
I had to pick between attending Surrey or the UnCon this year and chose the latter, which was enormously clever of me, as it turned out, but it would have been wonderful to meet you in person. Maybe next year?
I have a half-done blog post called Why I Can’t Seem to Write about Baddies. The gist of it is I can’t shuck what I learned as a medical student during my psychiatry rotation. Periodically we’d have a walk-in patient who attended at the behest of their lawyer; they hoped to achieve a free, positive psychiatric evaluation that would help with an upcoming sentencing hearing. “I’m addressing my psychological problems, your honor, so please be lenient with me.” We weren’t in a position to do anything medicolegal, but we’d still take a history, offer help when appropriate.
I’ll never forget a man who attended. His crime made him immediately unlikable to me at a visceral level. But as I did my job, learning in effect his “backstory”, he dropped all attempts to manipulate and became just another questing, hurting human being. As my teacher at the time said, “He’s only been acting out what has already been done to him.”
I suppose there are people out there who are truly evil, but I’ve yet to meet one. There are evil acts and evil desires, yes, but evil people? I remain unconvinced. In other words, I agree with your thesis, David. Thanks.
Hi, Jan:
I gave a workshop this weekend, and one of my students works at San Quentin prison. She said that over 80% of the inmates she interacts with are victims of child abuse, and over 80% are drug users by the time they’re twelve. When you see the cycle of destructive behavior acted out before your eyes over and over in men and women you come to realize are no less human than you are, it changes you. We talked about writing honestly about such people, “giving a voice to the voiceless” as James Lee Burke (who was a probation officer for a time) describes his own work, and the seeming indifference of the greater public, who are perfectly content to marginalize and demonize these men and women.
As for the cycle of abuse itself, I believe Freud’s term for this was Todestrieb, the repetition compulsion, which he linked to Thanatos, the death instinct. He seemed to think it was a neurotic trap, an attempt to recreate the traumatic incident because it was familiar and thus less frightening than the uncertainty of breaking free of the neurosis. Since then some therapists have seen it more positively, as an attempt to work through and thus break free of the trauma. But in either case, what it points to is the deep, inarticulate place where the wound exists, so deep and inarticulate than only symbolic behavior outside the realm of conscious control can express it.
Thanks for chiming in. Your experiences always deepen my understanding of what it means to be human, to care for others, and to be honest with myself.