Shatter Your Characters: Shame Them, Guilt Them
By Tom Bentley | November 24, 2015 |
Malibu pretending to be an innocent civilian
My cat killed a hummingbird a few days ago. She brought it in, as cats will do, proud, thrilled with the hunt, mad with animality. If you have a cat that goes outdoors, you know the behavior: your pet’s standard personality is turned up ten notches to a twitching, eyes-afire clench of sinew and nerves.
In my cat’s case, she’s a poor birder, for which I give thanks. In years, I’ve only found evidence of one slain bird in our yard. She’s pleased to display the occasional vole or even a rat from the nearby fields, but I, the moral relativist, shrug off those captures with bland disgust.
But here, a hummingbird. A creature of darting beauty, an expression of brimming vitality in its pulsing flights. Hummingbirds are like a sudden flare in the darkness, the wow of light, the delicate lick of the flitting flame. But this one, its flame out, being flipped maniacally into the air and onto the carpet in surges by my cat, until I was able to grab it off the floor before another flick of the cruel claw.
And when I picked it up, the bird’s limp neck flashed the ruby iridescence that contrasted with its green/gold feathers—beautiful yet, but just a shiny death mask. I put the bird out in the nearby fields, and then felt a pang of shame.
This post isn’t designed to be a forum on the politics of allowing a high-level predator like a cat to roam outdoors. My cat, Malibu, was a semi-feral cat that we’d seen roaming the neighborhood for more than a year before we adopted her. As we later found out, she had survived on the kindness of strangers—and of course, on her hunting skills. What is more interesting to me now, as a writer, is the shame. Since Malibu isn’t, as we are, gifted and cursed with a sense of self-consciousness, I had to experience shame in her stead.
Shame and Guilt, Kissing Cousins
Shame—and its first cousin, guilt—are useful tools for writers (and such intrigues for psychoanalysts): instances where a character was shamed, or felt deep guilt are often motivational markers for later character behaviors. We get a fine sense of the power of shame in our early stories: when Adam and Eve eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, the sudden sense of their own nakedness sweeps over them in waves of shame.
[Note: I don’t know about you, but I would have made a fruit salad out of those apples long before that wiggly fellow in the grass waggled his forked tongue at fair Eve. And I’m all in favor of some people being naked, but clothes do make the man.]
Guilt follows in scene two, when God questions why they bit into the forbidden. Not having good lawyers, each bobs and weaves for blame; expulsion from the Garden follows. (And their boy Cain had a lot of splainin’ to do later for his own guilt-laden crime.) That shame/guilt of our forbears, a backstory bear trap, became a lurking presence in many books, Biblical and not, to come.
The Fictional Fodder of Guilt
I wrote a coming-of-age novel years back in which one of the lead characters was carelessly driving a car in which his brother was killed. That incident is barely mentioned, but it’s there. His best friend, the book’s protagonist, doesn’t realize until much later how the burden of the past imprisons his friend, and causes him to act out (and lash out) in the book. When the protagonist finally gets it, his understanding and conditional forgiveness of his friend evolves.
In a novel I just finished, the protagonist realizes that his housemate is his best friend only upon the housemate’s impending death from AIDS. When the protagonist fails to visit the dying housemate in hospice, later discovering that he’s dead, he’s wracked by shame that he wasn’t there for his final hours, and guilt for never having told him he loved him. He expiates the guilt in a way that’s a defining piece of the book’s latter stages.
In the novel I’m working on now, the lead character is at first only dully aware that what he views as his harmless drinking has produced multiple incidents where he has been stung by shame, particularly in regards a woman he is haplessly trying to woo. His subsequent guilty reflections on his behavior do stir motivations—and attempts—to change, though sadly for him, there’s going to be plenty of trouble ahead.
Brené Spells It Out Better Than Me
Though shame and guilt do a mean tango, it’s helpful for a writer to distinguish the two. Although she’s not speaking of these constructs for a writer’s purposes, let’s look at how author and speaker Brené Brown makes those distinctions. (By the way, Brown’s TED talk on vulnerability is a must-see. The one on shame ain’t shameful either.)
Shame is a focus on self, guilt is a focus on behavior. Shame is, “I am bad.” Guilt is, “I did something bad.” How many of you, if you did something that was hurtful to me, would be willing to say, “I’m sorry. I made a mistake?” How many of you would be willing to say that? Guilt: I’m sorry. I made a mistake. Shame: I’m sorry. I am a mistake.
Shame is highly, highly correlated with addiction, depression, violence, aggression, bullying, suicide, eating disorders. Here’s what you even need to know more: Guilt is inversely correlated with those things. The ability to hold something we’ve done, or failed to do, up against who we want to be is incredibly adaptive. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s adaptive.
And from another piece:
Based on my research and the research of other shame researchers, I believe that there is a profound difference between shame and guilt. I believe that guilt is adaptive and helpful – it’s holding something we’ve done or failed to do up against our values and feeling psychological discomfort. I define shame as the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging – something we’ve experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection. I don’t believe shame is helpful or productive. In fact, I think shame is much more likely to be the source of destructive, hurtful behavior than the solution or cure. I think the fear of disconnection can make us dangerous.
How Do I Shame Me? Let Me Count the Ways
Dangerous can be good in a novel. But perhaps not in real life.
In a time when the public confessional seems a turnpike to publishing success—my new book, “I Blended My Siblings’ Brains into a Vodka Smoothie” is climbing the charts—I want to get in on the action too. As an adolescent, I was a wayward kid, devoting all my creative hours to getting in trouble. I was pretty good at it, and rarely got caught. For a period, one of the pleasant things my friends and I would do is fill a refillable fire extinguisher with water and drive around and spray pedestrians or bicycle riders with the water and vroom away. Geniuses, we found that to be great fun.
On a summer day in which we either didn’t have the extinguisher, or it wasn’t filled, we’d gone to a local hamburger joint that sold giant—and I mean giant—malts, at least a quart of liquid. I was in the back seat, window down, when we slowed to turn right at a traffic signal. I hadn’t even thought of doing it, but in a second, I saw a guy standing near the curb waiting for the opposing light to change and I whipped that half-filled malt out at him, drenching him.
It took a moment for the car’s occupants (sixteen- and seventeen-year-old boys, like me) to realize what I’d done. “Wow, you really got that guy!” someone said, and my friends laughed. But I’d turned back to look at my work, and saw an older Asian guy in a three-piece suit, looking in the moving car’s direction, hands at his side, no discernible expression. My shame was sharp, and hot.
I immediately wondered if he thought I was a racist, if our car was out to target well-dressed Asian people minding their own business on suburban street corners.
No, not a racist; just an idiot. The shame passed, but the guilt remains. Our car, which had fallen silent, because no one thought that incident was a victory, continued home. I wished I’d insisted that we return to the man, apologize, try to help, but I didn’t. Instead, I feel a fresh minting of guilt as I write this now, something I’ve never written about before.
That’s the kind of feeling that you can stir in your characters. Their acts, even if from forty years’ past, are still in their bloodstreams, simmering away. Tap them for their emotional power.
Oh, not more than a half-hour after Malibu killed that beautiful bird, she was purring in my lap. She remains guilt-free. Me, it will take a while.
What about you, sinners of WU? Do you think the spice of shame can add depth, or complexity, or plot development to your stories? Or is gilding with guilt just soap-opera stuff? Want to tell us about the time when you were fourteen and you stole your parents’ car while they were at church and almost drove into a ditch? (Oh wait—that was me.) Happy Thanksgiving!
[coffee]
Tom Bentley is a novelist, essayist, and business and travel writer. (He does not play banjo.) He’s published hundreds of freelance pieces in newspapers, magazines, and online. He is the author of three novels, a collection of short stories, a how-to book on finding and cultivating your writing voice and a memoir of his sordid teenage criminality. His singing is known to frighten the horses. See his lurid website confessions at tombentley.com.
Tom, strange how so many childhood incidents deal with guilt and shame. I have more than my share of shameful episodes and I’m so glad you make the distinction between shame and guilt. And I find that in the stories I write, this plays a major part, though I didn’t realize it until now. It’s that undercurrent that makes the MC do right later.
By the way, Malibu is magnificent. I have a semi-feral torti who manages in her old age (she’s 17) to still catch a gecko or two on the porch. But I still cannot stand to watch her play with it, so off I take it to the backyard.
And oh, my daughter still hasn’t forgiven me for taking a dead hummingbird to school for show-and-tell. I thought it would be interesting for the children to see the feathers up close and personal, but she was sent to the principal’s office instead. Scarred for life.
Vijaya, life can seem like a morality play when you are young, can’t it? Especially when you interpret from a child’s point of view, where there are so many things that are wrong, or unfair, or confusing. (Too bad that doesn’t change much as an adult.)
Yes, when Malibu isn’t cannibalizing the neighborhood, she’s a dear thing. Her markings are very close to a bobcat’s, and she has just a nub for a tail; she is at least part of the feline “desert lynx” breed, which has those characteristics.
If you took a dead hummingbird to school today, you’d probably be arrested as a terrorist. Better hold to popsicle-stick buildings.
Great topic, Tom – and an angle I hadn’t thought of before.
You’re absolutely right about the power of shame – and the apparently eternal and inescapable memories it creates.
Wow, that’s definitely something I’m going to delve into in the project I’m working on. Thanks for the inspiration!
Keith, yeah shame—it’s an odd cloak that you wear under your skin. I like that Goethe quote, which in one translation says, “No man knows what he is doing while he acts rightly, but of what is wrong, we are always conscious.” I think of that in the context of me tossing the malt on that fellow, and the instant sting.
Of course, you can shave and hone your particular block of morality: when I was operating my shoplifting business in high school, shame took a back seat to free (and “free” for me was the operant) enterprise. But I don’t think I’ll ever fully doff shame’s cloak from some of my reprobate days.
What an excellent blog, Tom! And I think you just helped me solve a problem I desperately needed to address, today, in my manuscript.
I love your bravery in confessing something shameful. When I was fourteen or so I kicked my sister in the face because I was mad at her and a boy I liked was looking on. She had a bruise on her cheek for days. I have apologized ten thousand times or better, but it can’t erase my abject shame. What possessed me? I have no idea.
There are others, because I was a wild one, but that’s the one I remember most.
Ooh, kicked your sister in the face! That’s a good one! My sisters were a good deal older than me, so when I bothered them, they would do things like throw me in the shower. I couldn’t kick high enough to reach their faces. Face-kickings and the like at that age do seem to be good fodder for rendering that sense of shame (and even wonder at what prompts the acts).
And yes, I forgot to mention the unearthly cry that cats make when they bring in their conquests, a noise that they don’t use otherwise. Demon possession. Thanks Barbara, and I hope these stirrings are helpful for the manuscript. If not, there’s always confession. (Forgive the old altar-boy talk; that stuff sticks with you too.)
Also, I live with an excellent feline hunter who brings mice, birds, and butterflies with a growling cry I’ve learned to dread, and deposits them in my lap. Hummingbirds are her special thing–she plucks them clean, eats them entirely, and leaves those iridescent feathers in a pile on the floor. It’s horrifying. I have planted all the favored hummingbird flowers on the edges of the garden where she cannot go, but she still manages to catch one now and then.
But you….she’s cat. That’s her job. There are no mice inside, I can assure you.
Oh, almost forgot: Barbara, thanks for the coffee! I will shamefully lard it with cream and sugar too.
The connection between Malibu and the shame/guilt issue is brilliant, Tom. I am reviewing my life to see if I can clarify which of my many dumb moves deserves one and which deserve the other. I have a rich trove from which to select.
Alex, I do think Brené Brown’s distinctions are helpful in understanding how one emotion can be crippling and one motivating (though the two seem to mix freely to me). I think fiction writers can make good use of old soul-scarrings impeding or influencing present-time behaviors in stories, and can add some depth. The trick is how to not introduce the shame/guilt as some kind of blunt instrument that mows down all in its path.
And of course, with that rich trove of depravity you can draw from, there’s always memoir.
Fantastically useful post for me, Tom.
Coincidentally, I just had a dream last night about a person and a situation I hadn’t thought about in years. It involved a pretrial deposition from over two decades ago, and I awoke feeling… was it shame or guilt? It’s too long a story to lay out, but as with your shake toss, the sharp tinge of it is there again, even as I type, so there must be something there. Worth sorting out, to see if there’s something useful. In any case, you’re right, it’s powerful stuff.
Regarding the WIP, I’ve been trying to figure out my MC’s relationship with his dead father, and the distinction between guilt and shame is going to be super useful to the process. I’d already been toying with his feelings of unworthiness in the eyes of his father, and although those feelings end up being adaptive for him (he is successful), they culminate in destructive and hurtful behavior, so an undercurrent of shame has to linger. It’s funny but I’ve always sensed he considers himself unlovable. He finds ways to reject everyone who truly loves him, and few stalwarts remain for his ultimate redemption. Which makes me now wonder what keeps their loyalty in the face of his shame-based behavior. Is their loyalty shame or guilt based?
Okay, now that I’ve wandered into “mumbling aloud to myself on WU” territory, I’ll thank you for the storm you’ve stirred in my noggin, and head to a place where I won’t cause people to look away or toss coins at me. Wishing you a wonderful, guilt-free feast this holiday, Tom!
Vaughn, that is some fascinating cross-sectioning of character backstory/psychology in your description of the son’s relationship with his lost father, and the layer of unworthiness that could be part of his worldview. That people who carry that weight can reject those that love them—because, how could they be lovable, after all?—really can cut with a jagged blade. Bleeding characters can make for good fiction, especially if they bleed internally.
Hey, your mumblings are pretty coherent to me! (Oh, and thanks for the Thanksgiving wave. I feel guilty about a thousand things, but I always eat at least two pieces of pie—I never feel guilty about that.)
So good. The protagonist in my WIP is struggling with something she did in high school. I wasn’t sure that what she did was a big enough deal to warrant her still thinking about it six years later. But this post helped me realize that it will be if I can accurately portray the shame she felt during the incident and since.And then if I can move my reader through her growth as that shame morphs into guilt, and then into action, I think I’ll have them hooked. Thank you! I’m grateful to that poor hummingbird for the sacrifice he unwittingly made that will help so many struggling writers. :-)
Grace, sadly (though perhaps usefully for writers), I think that high school stuff is there FOREVER. That’s probably why my face looks like an apple left out in the desert these days—I’m beginning to be the Dorian Gray painting, with brushstrokes of guilt. As has been quoted in these pages before, it’s Faulkner’s “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
I do hope that hummingbird’s soul is finding flowers in Hummingbird Heaven.
Guilt in fiction.
But what about a LACK of guilt in the protagonist.
No, I’m not talking about a hardened criminal.
My protagonist, an army officer, constantly treats his wife like a child needing protection from life.
Historical novel, 1933 Germany. In the post-war collapse of the German economy, ten years ago the husband lost 13 estate farms to pay back-taxes, but did not tell his wife because he wanted to protect her. She only discovered the loss a few years later, and has held it against him ever since. Now in 1933 the husband sells the family manor in the Black Forest, closed for the past ten years and derelict. He feels guilty selling the property, but doesn’t tell his wife BECAUSE he feels guilty about selling the property –
But never does he feel guilty about not telling his wife. When she learns the manor was sold, she loses trust in her husband – not because it was sold, but because, yet again, he had not discussed it with her.
Guilty? Or just thick-headed? It’s up to the reader to decide. We can’t know for sure, because the story is told from the husband’s POV. It is, however, the underpinning of loss of trust between them and an eventual collapse of the marriage.
Even subtle guilt can be a powerful force in fiction.
Oooh, Lyn, I do like that “guilt wrapped up in avoided guilt fueled by side-stepped guilt”—that’s at least as good as “a riddle wrapped up in a mystery inside an enigma.” Especially when the husband condescendingly “protects” the wife from information that she should own too. And that he has the POV, so he can try justify his own behavior directly to the reader. Good one!
What a brave and helpful post, Tom.
I’ve resolved most of my childhood shame and am alert to the symptoms of a present-day shame storm–thanks to Brene Brown for the description and accuracy of that metaphor. I do whatever I can to tame them because they are so toxic.
However, in my fiction, I can see that I’m working through some shame-filled traumas which emerged during my time in medicine. That could take me a while…
Jan, “shame storm” is a good term, because that stuff just seems to sweep over you, and you usually haven’t brought a raincoat. “Toxic” and “shame” are fast friends these days.
But I’m going to work out more of my stuff in my fiction too—goodness knows there’s a gold mine (or a dank grotto) of material there.
I’ve been reading WU articles almost daily for the past year and I’ve never commented. Because “who do I think I am?”, right?
This is huge.
The article is eye-opening, or should I say heart-opening. I watched both TED talks and they sparked such a break-through. In my WIP, I’m dabbling with guilt as a pretty major theme, but the heftier layer shame brings to the picture gives my story so much more depth, and so much more possibility for hope and redemption.
Huge, I tell you. Thank you!
Makeshift: shame on you for not commenting earlier! (Sorry, the wise guy in me can never resist.) Yes, her TED stuff feels as real as it gets, especially if you’ve ever opened your veins to the habanero pepper of shame; your whole body understands what’s being discussed.
I was reminded of a couple of great novels that have shame/guilt as fabric: the wrenching Sophie’s Choice, because of course, there’s no actual choice at all, and Crime and Punishment, because Raskolnikov’s guilt drives him mad (and the madness is described in such vivid ways). I hope you can work out that material in your story, because that under-the-surface earth is heavy indeed.
Hi Tom.
At the end of your excellent post, you describe an incident in your own adolescence, an impulsive act that was followed by a sense of shame. The reason? You saw your act had been witnessed by a man in a three-piece suit, fittingly as it turns out, an Asian man. Fittingly, because shame dominates in the east as a form of social control, whereas guilt is more prevalent in the west.
As I understand it, shame is essentially social. You bring shame on yourself by doing something that violates social norms, that the tribe condemns. Guilt on the other hand is more private than public. The external social controls have been internalized. The individual becomes his own tribe-of-one, visiting shame on himself/herself, which we call guilt.
Or something like that. However it goes, opening these concepts for thought and discussion–especially among writers–makes perfect sense. Thanks.
Damn, Barry, if you’d given me this stuff before I wrote this post, I’d have quoted you rather than Brené.
Really though, that opens up the shame/guilt concourse a bit more. I do like that sifting, where guilt is an internalized thing—which does also open it up to being a beast within that sometimes claws its way out, and sometimes inappropriately.
Thanks for steeping the notion, and adding your own sweetener.
Interesting post as usual Tom, made all the more entertaining by your ability to capture snapshots of an image with your brilliant writing style and unique use of similes. Sentences like this are just so damn good: “Hummingbirds are like a sudden flare in the darkness, the wow of light, the delicate lick of the flitting flame.” And this: “If you have a cat that goes outdoors, you know the behavior: your pet’s standard personality is turned up ten notches to a twitching, eyes-afire clench of sinew and nerves.”
Sally, I’m shamed and guilty to be the object of such praise. (But not really: It’s so much fun to try and catch something–anything–and put it on the page so it lives, at least a little bit.) Thanks a bushel!
Hi, Tom:
Sorry to be late to the party. This is a great subject. I have a slightly different take, which you’ve now inspired me to address in my next post. I agree wholeheartedly with the value of guilt and shame — shame especially — in characterization, but my angle is just different enough that I think we can have a nice back-and-forth once I get the thing up in December — and I’ll refer back to this post and discussion, because I think it’s really insightful.
Your reference to Brené Brown’s linkage of shame with addictive and self-destructive behavior is incredibly on-point and valuable — not just for our characters, but their creators as well.
Thanks for the food for thought. Speaking of food: Happy Thanksgiving!
David, definitely, what could be better than guilt and shame? (Though amorality does have its backers.) l always look forward to your posts, so shame away. And Happy Thanksgiving right back at you!
A somewhat admirable post, lively and concrete. I’ll not use the word brave.
Shame is a sham unless followed by reparation. If not to the injured, to others similarly so. I speak from extremity.
Very useful post. Thank you. I see that I am using guilt and shame in various ways in my wip. The shame of her mother’s addiction and behaviour during the protagonist’s childhood has formed the main character’s self-image in harmful, isolating ways, but she also feels guilt at her avoidance of her mother because she is, after all, her mother. The shame is certainly more difficult to deal with in the character arc being, as you said, more destructive. In this character it has produced a complex variety of social and emotional problems.
Again, thank you.
Judy, you’re very welcome! (I always love to dispense shame and guilt.) I presume you read David Corbett’s great piece elaborating on the subject today.
Your description of your protagonist’s mantle of guilt/shame brought to mind a person who is haunted, in that sense that shame/guilt can possess a person, and if unexamined, make a character act in ways that are puzzling, if not sometimes inexplicable. Hope you can work out the puzzle in your WIP.
I know this isn’t about the politics of hunting cats, and I don’t mean it to be, but not too long ago I read about a new way to alert feline prey they’re being stalked. Apparently bright colors work much better than sound (since cats can learn to keep a bell quiet) – so now you can order fluorescent colored breakaway scrunchy collars that look like a neon beacon to color-sensitive birds :)
Christi, thanks. To date Malibu has broken away from two breakaway collars, though neither was screaming neon. I’ll have to consult her on which go best with her dots/stripes outfit.
Tom:
I came across this post via David Corbett’s on the redemptive arc. Both are outstanding, just what I needed. They answer a lot of questions regarding one of my current WIPs and my own past. (I feel guilty at working on Sunday, but if I use it to improve my stories, I will feel redeemed.)
Thanks!
Christine, redemption is yours! (Well as far as I can grant it; my credentials are questionable.) Thanks for reading.