Spotty-Handed Villain Villainesses: esses: Problems Of Female Bad Behaviour In The Creation Of iterature by Margaret Atwood Canadian Author From a speech given in various versions, here and there, in 1994.
.....My title is "potty!anded #illainesses"$ #illainesses"$ my subtitle is, "%roblems o& Female 'ad 'ehaviour in the Creation o& (iterature." ) should probably have said, "in the creation o& novels, plays and epic poems." Female bad behaviour occurs in l yric poems, o& course, but not at su&&icient length. ) began to thin* about this sub+ect at a very early age. here was a childrens- rhyme that went here was a little girl /ho had a little curl 0ight i n the middle o& her &orehead$ /hen she was good, she was very, very good, And when she was bad, she was horrid 2o doubt this is a remnant o& the Angel3/hore plit so popular among the #ictorians, but at the age o& &ive ) did not *now that. ) too* this to be a poem o& personal signi&icance !! ) did a&ter all have curls !! and it brought home to me the deeply ungian possibilities o& a 5r. e*yll!Mr. e*yll!Mr. yde double li&e &or women. My older brother used this verse to tease me, or so he thought. e did manage to ma*e "very, very good" sound almost worse than "horrid," which remains an accurate analysis &or the novelist. Create a &lawless character and you create an insu&&erable one$ which may be why ) am interested in spots. ome o& you may wonder whether the spotty!handednes spotty!handedness s in my title titl e re&ers to age spots. /as my lecture perhaps going to centre on that once!&orbidden but now red! hot topic, he Menopause, without which any collection o& &emale!obilia would be incomplete6 ) hasten to point out that my title is not age!related$ it re&ers neither to age spots nor to youth spots. )nstead it recalls that most &amous o& spots, the invisible but indelible one on the hand o& wic*ed (ady Macbeth. pot as in guilt, spot as in blood, spot as in i n "out, damned." (ady Macbeth was spotted, 7phelia unspotted$ both came to stic*y ends, but there-s a world o& di&&erence. 'ut is it not, today !! well, somehow un&eminist !! to depict a woman behaving badly6 )sn-t bad behaviour supposed to be the monopoly o& m en6 )sn-t that what we are e8pected !! in de&iance o& real li&e !! to somehow believe, now6 /hen bad women get into literature, what are they doing there, and are they permissible, and what, i& anything, do we need them &or6 /e do need something li*e them$ by which ) mean, something disruptive to static order. /hen my daughter was &ive, she and her &riend eather announced that they were putting on a play. /e were conscripted as the audience. /e too* our seats, e8pecting to see something o& note. he play opened with two characters having brea*&ast. his was promising !! an )bsonian play perhaps, or something by .'. haw6 ha*espeare is not big on brea*&ast openings, but other playwrights o& talent have not disdained them.
he play progressed. he two characters had more brea*&ast. hen they had more. hey passed each other the +am, the corn&la*es, the toast. :ach as*ed i& the other would li*e a cup o& tea. /hat was going on6 /as this %inter, perhaps, or )onesco, or maybe Andy /arhol6 he audience grew restless. "Are you going to do anything e8cept have brea*&ast6" we said. "2o," they said. "hen it isn-t a play," we said. "omething else has to happen." And there you have it, the di&&erence between literature !! at least literature as embodied in plays and novels !! and li&e. omething else has to happen. )n li&e we may as* &or nothing more than a *ind o& eternal brea*&ast !! it happens to be my &avourite meal, and certainly it is the most hope&ul one, since we don-t yet *now what atrocities the day may choose to visit upon us !! but i& we are going to sit still &or two or three hours in a theatre, or wade through two or three hundred pages o& a boo*, we certainly e8pect something more than brea*&ast. /hat *ind o& something6 )t can be an earth;ua*e, a tempest, an attac* by Martians, the discovery that your spouse is having an a&&air$ or, i& the author is hyperactive, all o& these at once. 7r it can be the revelation o& the spottiness o& a spotty woman. )-ll get around to these disreputable &ol*s shortly, but &irst let me go over some essentials which may be insulting to your intelligence, but which are com&orting to mine, because they help me to &ocus on what )-m doing as a creator o& &ictions. )& you thin* )-m &logging a &ew dead horses !! horses which have been put out o& their pain long ago !! let me assure you that this is because the horses are not in &act dead, but are out there in the world, galloping around as vigorously as ever. ow do ) *now this6 ) read my mail. Also, ) listen to the ;uestions people as* me, both in interviews and a&ter public readings. he *inds o& ;uestions )-m tal*ing about have to do with how the characters in novels ought to behave.
/e con!artists do tell the truth, in a way$ but, as :mily 5ic*enson said, we tell it slant. 'y indirection we &ind direction out !! so here, &or easy re&erence, is an elimination! dance list o& what novels are not. !! 2ovels are not sociological te8tboo*s, although they may contain social comment and criticism. !! 2ovels are not political tracts, although "politics" !! in the sense o& human power structures !! is inevitably one o& their sub+ects. 'ut i& the author-s main design on us is to convert us to something !! ! whether that something be Christianity, capitalism, a belie& in marriage as the only answer to a maiden-s prayer, or &eminism, we are li*ely to sni&& it out, and to rebel. As Andre ide once remar*ed, ")t is with noble sentiments that bad literature gets written." !! 2ovels are not how!to boo*s$ they will not show you how to conduct a success&ul li&e, although some o& them may be read this way. )s %ride and %re+udice about how a sensible middle!class nineteenth!century woman can snare an appropriate man with a good income, which is the best she can hope &or out o& li&e, given the limitations o& her situation6 %artly. 'ut not completely. !! 2ovels are not, primarily, moral tracts. heir characters are not all models o& good behaviour !! or, i& they are, we probably won-t read them. 'ut they are lin*ed with notions o& morality, because they are about human beings and human beings divide behaviour into good and bad. he characters +udge each other, and the reader +udges the characters. owever, the success o& a novel does not depend on a 2ot uilty verdict &rom the reader. As =eats said, ha*espeare too* as much delight in creating )ago !! that arch!villain !! as he did in creating the virtuous )mogen. ) would say probably more, and the proo& o& it is that )-d bet you-re more li*ely to *now which play )ago is in. !! 'ut although a novel is not a political tract, a how!to!boo*, a sociology te8tboo* or a pattern o& correct morality, it is also not merely a piece o& Art &or Art-s a*e, divorced &rom real li&e. )t cannot do without a conception o& &orm and a structure, true, but its roots are in the mud$ its &lowers, i& any, come out o& the rawness o& its raw materials. !! )n short, novels are ambiguous and multi!&aceted, not because they-re perverse, but because they attempt to grapple with what was once re&erred to as the human condition, and they do so using a medium which is notoriously slippery !! namely, language itsel&. 2ow, let-s get bac* to the notion that in a novel, something else has to happen !! other than brea*&ast, that is. /hat will that "something else" be, and how does the novelist go about choosing it6
the most basic and the most di&&icult. 2ovelists, on the other hand, start with the blan* page, to which they similarly address ;uestions. 'ut the ;uestions are di&&erent. )nstead o& as*ing, &irst o& all, "what does it mean," they wor* at the widget level$ they as*, ")s this the right word6" "/hat does it mean" can only come when there is an "it" to mean something. 2ovelists have to get some actual words down be&ore they can &iddle with the theology. 7r, to put it another way od started with chaos !! dar*, without &orm and void !! and so does the novelist. hen od made one detail at a time. o does the novelist. 7n the seventh day, od too* a brea* to consider what he-d done. o does the novelist. 'ut the critic starts on 5ay >. he critic, loo*ing at plot, as*s, "/hat-s happening here6" he novelist, creating plot, as*s,"/hat happens ne8t6" he critic as*s, ")s this believable6" he novelist, "ow can ) get them to believe this6" he novelist, echoing Marshall Mc(uhan-s &amous dictum that art is what you can get away with, says, "ow can ) pull this o&&6" !! as i& the novel itsel& were a *ind o& ban* robbery. /hereas the critic is liable to e8claim, in the mode o& the policeman ma*ing the arrest, "Aha ?ou can-t get away with that" )n short, the novelist-s concerns are more practical than those o& the critic$ more concerned with "how to," less concerned with metaphysics. Any novelist !! whatever his or her theoretical interests !! has to contend with the &ollowing how!to ;uestions !! /hat *ind o& story shall ) choose to tell6 )s i t, &or instance, comic or tragic or melodramatic, or all6 ow shall ) tell it6 /ho will be at the centre o& it, and will this person be a@ admirable or b@ not6 And !! more important than it may sound !! will it have a happy ending, or not6 2o matter what you are writing !! what genre and in what style, whether cheap &ormula or high!minded e8periment !! you will still have to answer !! in the course o& your writing !! these essential ;uestions. Any story you tell must have a con&lict o& some sort, and it must have suspense. )n other words something other than brea*&ast. (et-s put a woman at the centre o& the something!other!than!brea*&ast, and see what happens. 2ow there is a whole new set o& ;uestions. /ill the con&lict be supplied by the natural world6 )s our &emale protagonist lost in the +ungle, caught in a hurricane, pursued by shar*s6 )& so, the story will be an adventure story and her +ob is to run away, or else to combat the shar*s, displaying courage and &ortitude, or else cowardice and stupidity. )& there is a man in the story as well, the plot will alter in other directions he will be a rescuer, an enemy, a companion in struggle, a se8 bomb, or someone rescued by the woman. 7nce upon a time, the &irst would have been more probable, that is, more believable to the reader$ but times have changed and art is what you can get away with, and the other possibilities have now entered the picture. tories about space invasions are similar, in that the threat comes &rom outside and the goal &or the character, whether achieved or not, is survival. /ar stories per se !! ditto, in that the main threat is e8ternal. #ampire and werewol& stories are more complicated, as are ghost stories$ in these, the threat is &rom outside, true, but the threatening thing may also conceal a split!o&& part o& the character-s own psyche. enry ames- he urn o& the crew and 'ram to*er-s 5racula are in large part animated by such hidden agendas$ and both revolve around notions o& &emale se8uality. 7nce all werewolves were male, and &emale vampires were usually mere
side*ic*s$ but there are now &emale werewolves, and women are moving in on the star bloodsuc*ing roles as well. /hether this is good or bad news ) hesitate to say. 5etective and espionage stories may combine many elements, but would not be what they are without a crime, a criminal, a trac*ing!down, and a revelation at the end$ again, all sleuths were once male, but sleuthesses are now prominent, &or which ) hope they lay a votive ball o& wool &rom time to ti me upon the tomb o& the sainted Miss Marple. /e live in an age not only o& gender cross!over but o& genre crossover, so you can throw all o& the above into the cauldron and stir. hen there are stories classed as "serious" literature, which centre not on e8ternal threats !! although some o& these may e8ist !! but on relationships among the characters. o avoid the eternal brea*&ast, some o& the characters must cause problems &or some o& the others.his is where the ;uestions really get di&&icult. As )-ve said, the novel has its roots in the mud, and part o& the mud is history$ and part o& the history we-ve had recently is the history o& the women-s movement, and the women-s movement has in&luenced how people read, and there&ore what you can get away with, in art. ome o& this in&luence has been bene&icial. /hole areas o& human li&e that were once considered non!literary or sub!literary !! such as the problematical nature o& homema*ing, the hidden depths o& motherhood, and o& daughterhood as well, the once!&orbidden realms o& incest and child abuse !! have been brought inside the circle that demarcates the writeable &rom the non!writeable. 7ther things, such as the Cinderella happy ending !! the %rince Charming one !! have been called into ;uestion. As one lesbian writer remar*ed to me, the only happy ending she &ound believable any more was the one in which girl meets girl and ends up with girl$ but that was &i&teen years ago, and the bloom is o&& even that romantic rose.@ o *eep you &rom being too depressed, let me emphasiBe that none o& this means that you, personally, cannot &ind happiness with a good man, a good woman or a good pet canary$ +ust as the creation o& a bad &emale character doesn-t mean that women should lose the vote. )& bad male characters meant that, &or men, all men would be disen&ranchised immediately. /e are tal*ing about what you can get away with in art$ that is, what you can ma*e believable. /hen ha*espeare wrote his sonnets to his dar*!haired mistress, he wasn-t saying that blondes were ugly, he was merely pushing against the notion that only blondes were beauti&ul. he tendency o& innovative literature is to include the hitherto e8cluded, which o&ten has the e&&ect o& rendering ludicrous the conventions that have +ust preceded the innovation. o the &orm o& the ending, whether happy or not, does not have to do with how people live their lives !! there is a great deal o& variety in that department and, a&ter all, in li&e every story ends with death, which is not true o& novels@. )nstead it-s connected with what literary conventions the writer is &ollowing or pulling apart at the moment. appy endings o& the Cinderella *ind do e8ist in stories, o& course, but they have been relegated largely to genre &iction, such as arle;uin romances. o summariBe some o& the bene&its to literature o& the /omens- Movement !! the e8pansion o& the territory available to writers, both in character and in language$ a sharp!eyed e8amination o& the way power wor*s in gender relations, and the e8posure o& much o& this as socially constructed$ a vigorous e8ploration o& many hitherto!concealed areas o& e8perience. 'ut as with any political movement which
comes out o& real oppression !! and ) do emphasiBe the real !! there was also, in the &irst decade at least o& the present movement, a tendency to coo*ie!cut that is, to write to a pattern and to oversugar on one side. ome writers tended to polariBe morality by gender !! that is, women were intrinsically good and men bad$ to divide along allegiance lines !! that is, women who slept with men were sleeping with the enemy$ to +udge by tribal mar*ings !! that is, women who wore high heels and ma*eup were instantly suspect, those in overalls were acceptable$ and to ma*e hope&ul e8cuses that is, de&ects in women were ascribable to the patriarchal system and would cure themselves once that system was abolished. uch oversimpli&ications may be necessary to some phases o& political movements. 'ut they are usually problematical &or novelists, unless the novelist has a secret desire to be in billboard advertising. )& a novelist writing at that time was also a &eminist, she &elt her choices restricted. /ere all heroines to be essentially spotless o& soul !! struggling against, &leeing &rom or done in by male oppression6 /as the only plot to be he %erils o& %auline, with a lot o& moustache!twirling villains but minus the rescuing hero6 5id su&&ering prove you were good6 )& so !! thin* hard about this !! wasn-t it all &or the best that women did so much o& it6@ 5id we &ace a situation in which women could do no wrong, but could only have wrong done to them6 /ere women being con&ined yet again to that alabaster pedestal so beloved o& the #ictorian age, when /oman as better!than!man gave men a license to be glee&ully and en+oyably worse than women, while all the while proclaiming that they couldn-t help it because it was their nature6 /ere women to be condemned to virtue &or li&e, slaves in the salt!mines o& goodness6 ow intolerable. 7& course, the &eminist analysis made some *inds o& behaviour available to &emale characters which, under the old dispensation !! the pre!&eminist one !! would have been considered bad, but under the new one were praiseworthy. A &emale character could rebel against social strictures without then having to throw hersel& in &ront o& a train li*e Anna =arenina$ she could thin* the unthin*able and say the unsayable$ she could &lout authority. he could do new bad!good things, such as leaving her husband and even deserting her children. uch activities and emotions, however, were !! according to the new moral thermometer o& the times !! not really bad at all$ they were good, and the women who did them were praiseworthy. )-m not against such plots. ) +ust don-t thin* they are the only ones. And there were certain new no!no-s. For instance was it at all permissible, any more, to tal* about women-s will to power, because weren-t women supposed by nature to be communal egalitarians6 Could one depict the scurvy behaviour o&ten practised by women against one another, or by little girls against other litt le girls6 Could one e8amine the even 5eadly ins in their &emale versions !! to remind you, %ride, Anger, (ust, :nvy, Avarice, reed and loth !! without being considered anti! &eminist6 7r was a mere mention o& such things tantamount to aiding and abetting the enemy, namely the male power!structure6 /ere we to have a warning hand clapped over our mouths, yet once again, to prevent us &rom saying the unsayable !! though the unsayable had changed6 /ere we to listen to our mothers, yet once again, as they intoned !! )& ?ou Can-t ay Anything 2ice, 5on-t ay Anything At All6 adn-t men been giving women a bad reputation &or centuries6 houldn-t we &orm a wall o& silence around the badness o& women, or at best e8plain it away by saying it was the &ault o& 'ig 5addy, or !! permissible too, it seems !! o& 'ig Mom6 'ig Mom,
that agent o& the patriarchy, that pronatalist, got it in the nec* &rom certain seventies &eminists$ though mothers were admitted into the &old again once some o& these women turned into them. )n a word were women to be homogeniBed !! one woman is the same as another !! and deprived o& &ree will !! as in, he patriarchy made her do it6 7r, in another word !! were men to get all the +uicy parts6 (iterature cannot do without bad behaviour, but was all the bad behaviour to be reserved &or men6 /as it to be all )ago and Mephistopheles, and were eBebel and Medea and Medusa and 5elilah and 0egan and oneril and spotty!handed (ady Macbeth and 0ider aggard-s power&ul super&emme &atale in he, and ony Morrison-s mean ula, to be banished &rom view6 ) hope not. /omen characters, arise a*e bac* the night )n particular, ta*e bac* he ueen o& the 2ight, &rom MoBart-s Magic Flute. )t-s a great part, and due &or revision. ) have always *nown that there were spellbinding evil parts &or women. For one thing, ) was ta*en at an early age to see now /hite and the even 5war&s. 2ever mind the %rotestant wor* ethic o& the dwar&s. 2ever mind the tedious housewor*!is! virtuous moti&. 2ever mind the &act that now /hite is a vampire !! anyone who lies in a glass co&&in without decaying and then comes to li&e again must be. he truth is that ) was paralysed by the scene in which the evil ;ueen drin*s the magic potion and changes her shape. /hat power, what untold possibilities Also, ) was e8posed to the complete, une8purgated rimm-s Fairy ales at an impressionable age. Fairy tales had a bad reputation among &eminists &or a while !! partly because they-d been cleaned up, on the erroneous supposition that little children don-t li*e gruesome gore, and partly because they-d been selected to &it the -&i&ties %rince Charming )s ?our oal ethos. o Cinderella and the leeping 'eauty were o*ay, though he ?outh /ho et 7ut to (earn /hat Fear /as, which &eatured a good many rotting corpses, plus a woman who was smarter than her husband, were not. 'ut many o& these tales were originally told and retold by women, and these un*nown women le&t their mar*. here is a wide range o& heroines in these tales$ passive good girls, yes, but adventurous, resource&ul women as well, and proud ones, and sloth&ul ones, and &oolish ones, and envious and greedy ones, and also many wise women and a variety o& evil witches, both in disguise and not, and bad stepmothers and wic*ed ugly sisters and &alse brides as well. he stories, and the &igures themselves, have immense vitality, partly because no punches are pulled !! in the versions ) read, the barrels o& nails and the red!hot shoes were le&t intact !! and also because no emotion is unrepresented. ingly, the &emale characters are limited and two!dimensional. 'ut put all together, they &orm a rich &ive!dimensional picture. Female characters who behave badly can o& course be used as stic*s to beat other women !! though so can &emale characters who behave well, witness the cult o& the #irgin Mary, better than you-ll ever be, and the legends o& the &emale saints and martyrs !! +ust cut on the dotted line, and, minus one body part, there-s your saint, and the only really good woman is a dead woman, so i& you-re so good why aren-t you dead6 'ut &emale bad characters can also act as *eys to doors we need to open, and as mirrors in which we can see more than +ust a pretty &ace. hey can be e8plorations o&
moral &reedom !! because everyone-s choices are limited, and women-s choices have been more limited than men-s, but that doesn-t mean women can-t ma*e choices . uch characters can pose the ;uestion o& responsibility, because i& you want power you have to accept responsibility, and actions produce conse;uences. )-m not suggesting an agenda here, +ust some possibilities$ nor am ) prescribing, +ust wondering. )& there-s a closed!o&& road, the curious speculate about why it-s closed o&&, and where it might lead i& &ollowed$ and evil women have been, &or a while recently, a somewhat closed!o&& road, at least &or &iction!writers. /hile pondering these matters, ) thought bac* over the numerous bad &emale literary characters ) have *nown, and tried to sort them into categories. )& you were doing this on a blac*board, you might set up a *ind o& grid bad women who do bad things &or bad reasons, good women who do good things &or good reasons, good women who do bad things &or good reasons, bad women who do bad things &or good reasons, and so &orth. 'ut a grid would +ust be a beginning, because there are so many &actors involved &or instance, what the character thin*s is bad, what the reader thin*s is bad, and what the author thin*s is bad, may all be di&&erent. 'ut let me de&ine a thoroughly evil person as one who intends to do evil, and &or purely sel&ish reasons. he ueen in now /hite would &it that. o would 0egan and oneril, (ear-s evil daughters$ very little can be said in their de&ence, e8cept that they seem to have been against the patriarchy. (ady Mac'eth, however, did her wic*ed murder &or a conventionally acceptable reason, one that would win approval &or her in corporate business circles !! she was &urthering her husband-s career. he pays the corporate!wi&e price, too !! she subdues her own nature, and has a nervous brea*down as a result. imilarly, eBebel was merely trying please a sul*y husband$ he re&used to eat his dinner until he got hold o& 2aboth-s vineyard , so eBebel had its owner bumped o&&. /i&ely devotion, as ) say. he amount o& se8ual baggage that has accumulated around this &igure i s astounding, since she doesn-t do anything remotely se8ual in the original story, e8cept put on ma*eup. he story o& Medea, whose husband ason married a new princess, and who then poisoned the bride and murdered her own two children, has been interpreted in various ways. )n some versions Medea is a witch and commits in&anticide out o& revenge$ but the play by :uripides is surprisingly neo!&eminist. here-s ;uite a lot about how tough it is to be a woman, and Medea-s motivation is commendable !! she doesn-t want her children to &all into hostile hands and be cruelly abused !! which is also the situation o& the child!*illing mother in oni Morrison-s 'eloved. A good woman, then, who does a bad thing &or a good reason. ardy-s ess o& the 5-
number o& women what the worst thing is that a woman &riend could possibly do to them. Chances are the answer will involve the the&t o& a se8ual partner. ome &amous seductresses have really been patriotic espionage agents. 5elilah, &or instance, was an early Mata ari, wor*ing &or the %hilistines, trading se8 &or military in&ormation. udith, who all but seduced the enemy general olo&ernes and then cut o&& his head and brought it home in a sac*, was treated as a heroine, although she has troubled men-s imaginations through the centuries !! witness the number o& male painters who have depicted her !! because she combines se8 with violence in a way they aren-t accustomed to and don-t much li*e. hen there are &igures li*e awthorne-s adulterous ester %rynne, she o& he carlet (etter, who becomes a *ind o& se8!saint through su&&ering !! we assume she did what she did through (ove, and thus she becomes a good woman who did a bad thing &or a good reason !! and Madame 'ovary, who not only indulged her romantic temperament and voluptuous sensual appetites, but spent too much o& her husband-s money doing it, which was her down&all. A good course in double!entry boo**eeping would have saved the day. ) suppose she is a &oolish women who did a stupid thing &or an insu&&icient reason, since the men in ;uestion were dolts. 2either the modern reader nor the author consider her very evil, though many contemporaries did, as you can see i& you read the transcript o& the court case in which the &orces o& moral rectitude tried to get the boo* censored. 7ne o& my &avourite bad women is 'ec*y harpe, o& hac*eray-s #anity Fair. he ma*es no pretensions to goodness. he is wic*ed, she en+oys being wic*ed, and she does it out o& vanity and &or her own pro&it, tric*ing and deluding :nglish society in the process !! which, the author implies, deserves to be tric*ed and deluded, since it is hypocritical and sel&ish to the core. 'ec*y, li*e
depths$ why shouldn-t their many!dimensionality be given literary e8pression6 And when it is, &emale readers do not automatically recoil in horror. )n Aldous u8ley-s novel %oint Counter %oint, (ucy antamount, the man!destroying vamp, is pre&erred by the other &emale characters to the earnest, snivelling woman whose man she has reduced to a wet bath sponge. As one o& them says, "(ucy-s obviously a &orce. ?ou may not li*e that *ind o& &orce. 'ut you can-t help admiring the &orce in itsel&. )t- s li*e 2iagara." )n other words, awesome. 7r, as one :nglishwoman said to me recently, "/omen are tired o& being good all the time." ) will leave you with a &inal ;uotation. )t-s &rom 5ame 0ebecca /est, spea*ing in 191D !! "(adies o& reat 'ritain... we have not enough evil in us." 2ote where she locates the desired evil. )n us. ources peech can also be &ound at E http33www.owtoad.com3 villainesses.html. G Copyright 1994 by 7./. oad (td. All rights reserved.
