“I don't ask for things I don't think I can get.” Regina
Giddens as portrayal of a New Southern evil in William
Wyler’s “The Little Foxes” (1941)
Mónica Ledo Fernández
Abstract
If moral interpretations are based on the discourse of good, then the concept
of evilness, considered as a moral error, must necessarily appear in contrast
to the former notion. However, we can yet consider another framework for
evil if we focus on the analysis of the villain’s source of wickedness as well
as on the effects caused by this evil. According to an ethical and
philosophical view, we will question the identity of a famous screen
character, Regina Giddens (starring Bette Davis) in William Wyler’s film
The Little Foxes (1941), as one of the most malevolent, manipulative, selfish,
and evil characters of the 1940s Hollywood cinema. Bette Davis’ role was
that of a defiant woman with a greedy and venomous nature. Moved by
materialistic desires, Regina becomes an unscrupulous woman capable of any
and every moral wrong. Still, she is the absolute protagonist of the film and
she even leads the audience to sympathize with her powerful (evil) spirit.
By offering a portrayal of Regina Giddens, a new woman in the new
South, we will comment on woman’s evilness at a very specific time in the
past, the Reconstruction period. But we will also prove that she could very
well represent the antecedent of the 21st century’s evil woman, as she can
also be compared to some classical villainesses. This study will examine
Regina’s behavior, both in a social and a moral context, so as to re-interpret
her wickedness as a double-edged sword: a powerful tool in her struggle
against tradition as well as the cause for family decay and loss.
Key Words: Wickedness, immoral, harm, victim, evildoer, greed, money,
power, patriarchy, Reconstruction.
*****
There is no period in history when the topic of evil has not been
discussed. Although there have been many different points of view and
diverse focal points in the study of evil, its definition is still complex and
evilness remains difficult to classify as a concept. According to Card’s own
definition of evil as presented in her study of evil, Atrocity Paradigm:
“I don’t ask for things I don’t think I can get.” Regina Giddens as
portrayal of a New Southern evil in William Wyler’s The Little Foxes
(1941)
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…an evil is harm that is (1) reasonably foreseeable (or appreciable)
and (2) culpably inflicted (or tolerated, aggravated, or maintained),
and that (3) deprives, or seriously risks depriving, others of the
basics that are necessary to make a life possible and tolerable or
decent (or to make a death decent).1
What Card calls “intolerable harm” puts the emphasis on the deed itself,
a deed that is insufferable. However, when she talks about “culpable
wrongdoing,” she is emphasizing the suffering. Both the deed and the
suffering make part of the same evil and we cannot separate them. Therefore,
we will consider a framework for evil that explores the perspective of the
oppressor’s source of evil as well as the effects caused by this evil.
Focusing on Card’s “theory of evil,” we will analyze in this chapter the
identity of Regina Giddens as image of evil in William Wyler’s film The
Little Foxes (1941). With this purpose, we will pay attention to Regina’s
malevolent behavior —both its sources and effects— without leaving aside
Regina’s own perspective of the world, so as to understand why she is
depicted as one of the most calculating, self-centered, and wicked screen
characters of the 1940s. Is this portrayal of evil accurate or must we reconsider Regina’s immoral nature? In order to provide an answer for this
question, we will first study vileness in Regina’s character as a social
concept: people performing wrong deeds as members of a community, in this
case the context of Reconstruction in the South of the United States. On the
other hand, we will focus on the analysis of evilness understood as a moral
concept: human beings acting maliciously in order to achieve a goal. Evil in
this case is inflicted because of the person’s wrong intentions. Both analyses
are closely related since moral evil might be born from social evil.
As Card claims, “we do not choose evil simply for its own sake.”2 Evil is
conceived at a given moment and fed until it grows to be noticeable and later
dangerous, even lethal. But there is usually a reason (or several) that lead the
perpetrator of evil to commit atrocities. This is what happens to Regina in
The Little Foxes; her wickedness doesn’t emerge out of nothing, it comes
from two main sources: greed and the desire to achieve power in a world
ruled by men.
We could define greed as an immoderate desire to possess more
than what we need in terms of material wealth. Whereas from a religious
point of view it implies the abandonment of the spiritual realm —therefore
becoming a sin—, it would be considered as a wrongdoing following Card’s
theory. That is to say, greed by itself is morally incorrect, but it is not yet an
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evil. Even though all the Hubbards in the film (Ben, Oscar, and Regina) are
representative of greed, Regina is depicted as especially avaricious.
However, despite her rapacious behavior, we might wonder if she’s greedy
for money or for something else. And in order to find out, we need to
examine the sources of this greed, that is, to go back to Regina’s youth. It is
not explicit in the film, but we can learn about Regina’s past in Lillian
Hellman’s play Another Part of the Forest (1946) and Michael Gordon’s film
(1948) under the same title. The American playwright actually wrote this
prequel after the success of The Little Foxes (1939), in which Wyler’s film is
based on, but taking into account the events of the past is essential to
understand Regina’s attitude in The Little Foxes twenty years later.
Set in a fictional town in Alabama in 1880, in Another Part of the
Forest we meet the prosperous and avaricious Hubbard family in their rise to
prominence. Back then Regina was a sexually active young woman who
wanted to live in Chicago with a former Confederate officer she was in love
with. However, her father, who showed an unnatural proximity to her,
avoided her escape. Later, her elder brother Ben, usurped the patriarch’s
power and strongly encouraged Regina to marry Horace Giddens, a wealthy
town clerk. After giving up the idea of love, Regina wants to have
“everything” else, that is, wealth, independence, and a social life she can
enjoy, in a word, power. Twenty years later, she’s still struggling to make her
dream come true:
Yes, I’m going to live there [in Chicago]. I’m gonna take Alexandra
with me. I’ll give big parties and see that she meets the best people
and the right young men too. And later on, I’ll take trips to New
York and Paris, and have what I want, everything I want.
As the economic power belongs to men, Regina needs to plan well
her moves if she wants to be successful. Another source for her evil actions is
therefore this financial inequality she thinks absurd. As a married woman,
she depends now on her husband, and she cannot manage his money at her
own will:
At century’s end married-women’s-property law in the South —and
in the rest of the country, for that matter— was an odd assortment of
powers, obligations, and disabilities […] As an index to southern
attitudes toward women, the law is completely unreliable.3
Determined to change this situation and very hungry for power,
Regina decides to take advantage on her brothers, without caring at all about
“I don’t ask for things I don’t think I can get.” Regina Giddens as
portrayal of a New Southern evil in William Wyler’s The Little Foxes
(1941)
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family bonds. Her sharp and calculating conduct makes Ben and Oscar look
ridiculous as Regina’s rivals. Despite having the power and position (within a
patriarchal society where men are still the economic supporters), their
aptitude and manners are much inferior to those of Regina. They are focused
on their aim, but they lack intellect and they look like puppets in her hands.
The turn of century is the perfect context to make money in the
South. The Reconstruction brings with it a whole new emergent crew of
rapacious characters, very different from those mythic gentlemanly figures of
the Old South. Carpetbaggers and scalawags* are the main representatives of
greed and Regina immediately welcomes money coming from either of these
groups. Now that the North is investing in the South, Regina’s selfishness
and her desire to be an equal to her brothers increases at the prospect of
making capital. There is nothing she wants more than to “spoil the vines,”
and she emerges as the major fox of the Hubbard family.
When Mr Marshall, a newcomer from the North, comes to establish
a cotton mill in the South, the Hubbards do not doubt to take part in his
business, and Regina becomes a scalawag herself by allying with her brothers
and this man in order to have her own share. Ben and Oscar will make a deal
with Mr Marshall, but it is Regina the one who helps them to get it by acting
charming and masquerading her brothers’ vicious attitudes idiotically
reflected in their talks. Although she is denied to take part in business for
being a woman, her brothers depend on her appeal and intelligence. Is she to
blame here for trying to charm Mr. Marshall for her own benefit? She’s
malicious, yes, she’s manipulative, she’s proud of herself and self-centered
but, is she evil? Surrounded by vicious men, she grows selfish and
treacherous, manipulating her brothers until she eventually has the
opportunity to blackmail them, foreseeing success:
REGINA: Perhaps he [Horace] is remaining silent because he
doesn’t think he’s getting enough for his money. Seventy five
thousand he has to put up, that’s a lot of money.
[…]
OSCAR: He’s only putting up a third of the money. You put up a
third, you get a third. What else could he expect, Regina?
REGINA: Well, I don’t know. I don’t know about those things. It
would seem you put up a third, you get a third. And yet again,
there’s no law about it, is there? I should think if your money was
badly needed, you must just say “I want more. I want a larger
share.” You boys have done that, I’ve heard you say so.
BEN: So you believe Horace is deliberately holding out? Well, I
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don’t. But I do believe that’s what you want. Am I right, Regina?
REGINA: Well, I wouldn’t like to persuade Horace unless he gets a
larger share. After all, he’s my husband. I must look after his
interests.
[…]
OSCAR: You’re talking big tonight.
REGINA: Am I? Oscar, you should know me well enough by now
to know I don’t ask for things I don’t think I can get.
Regina speaks for her husband when in reality she is plotting against
him as well. She astutely negotiates her own share by manipulating her
brothers. Her vice is latent here and her cunning thought leads her to act
immorally. She constantly emphasizes her alleged ignorance for business,
ironically in the middle of proving herself as a sharp negotiator. By not
asking for things she doesn’t think she can get she may be causing harm to
her brothers, but as “harm is not evil unless aggravated, supported, or
produced by culpable wrongdoing,”4 we cannot catalogue her as an evil
woman yet.
The little foxes are growing to become big foxes now, and Regina’s
greed helps her to reach enough power to not be left outside. One of the
famous quotes of the film points out to the corruption of the Hubbards, and
especially to Regina’s distortion: “There’s people that eats up the whole
Earth and all the people on it, like in the Bible with the locust.” Regina,
despite being a woman in a male’s world, is now even more dangerous than
her brothers for a simple reason: she certainly wants “to eat up the whole
Earth,” she knows how to, and she is confident she can do it.
John Stuart Mill considers that the so-called self-centred vices “are
not properly immoralities and to whatever pitch they may be carried, do not
constitute wickedness,”5 that is, these vices may be thoughtless but we cannot
classify them as immoral. Bearing this in mind, shouldn’t we re-interpret
Regina’s evil in a different light? Her deeds, in the end, originate from a
clearly self-regarding vice, greed. This is morally wrong, selfish, even
egotistical, but not wicked yet. However, as we will see towards the end of
the film, these vices are likely to grow more bigger and addictive, deriving
into atrociousness at some point. Therefore, even if the source of Regina’s
evil was originally an immoral vice, she will eventually become an evildoer
and be forever remembered as a depraved woman after letting her husband
die.
Another of the main sources for Regina’s wickedness appears to be
the patriarchal power, which causes a strong reaction of rejection in her. As
the economic power still belongs to men, women find themselves dependent
“I don’t ask for things I don’t think I can get.” Regina Giddens as
portrayal of a New Southern evil in William Wyler’s The Little Foxes
(1941)
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on them at the same time they start to be conscious about their possibilities
—and their right— to become man’s equals. Barbara Arrighi defines
patriarchy as “a system of domination by a few men over all others, including
children, women, and men,” and she emphasizes the fact that women are on
the bottom “only slightly above children (if that).”6 In Another Part of the
Forest we learn that Regina’s mother was a clear example of a submissive
woman under her husband’s dominion, but Regina refuses to take her mother
as a role model. In fact, she probably finds her so weak and pitiable that she
decides to become her opposite. As a result, Regina’s feeling of dislike for
her mother’s passivity also contributes to make her actively react against
male power, at the same time it clearly becomes one of Regina’s sources of
evil.
In order to fight tradition, Regina makes herself into a new woman
and adapts to modern times by means of evil. The tools she uses against
man’s power are blackmail and manipulation, and she doesn’t mind reaching
dangerous extremes. In a period of industrial growth, Regina interprets
capitalism as a system that provides women with a possibility for
empowerment. Like her, other women in the Reconstruction period saw
industrialism as their ally, and they started to challenge man’s power
emerging as the first feminists. In Gordons’ words, they contributed to “the
‘modernization’ of male domination, its adaptation to new economic and
social conditions.”7 Regina Giddens could well come into view as the image
of the Southern feminist, but the method she chooses to fight is an immoral
and wrong one, and it will keep her away from being interpreted as a real
heroine.
Regina wonders what will be her own8 and why women and property
seem to be irreconcilable opposites. Until Mary Beard work on equity law,
nineteenth century women were considered to be “covert” that is,
economically covered by the marriage relationships. But with the time, this
perspective changed and, as Censer notices, the prohibition of entering the
business world for women “was neither complete nor permanent.”9
Moreover, we cannot forget to mention certain opinions that emphasize a
feminist aspect in the changes that women’s space was about to suffer, as the
following interpretation of Finney:
The prominence of female characters in the period had
everything to do with the situation of women at the turn of the
century, a moment when the first feminist movement was
challenging the traditional view that women are fundamentally
different from and subordinate to men.10
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Patriarchy may submit women in many different contexts (social,
political, personal, etc), however, as previously explained, Regina gets
involved in a battle against brotherly authority mostly because of money
issues. In the film we can see how Ben admires her sister’s intelligence, but
he still thinks he has the right to control her, not because of brotherly ties but
because he is a (business)-man and he believes he can use her to make profit
for himself. For Ben, she is an admirable woman in her cynicism, but still
and inferior.
Judging from the complicity that Regina and Ben have now for
plotting, nobody would say that she is resented with him for having made her
marry Horace twenty years ago. However, we might think that she suffered
giving in to her brother’s decision, and so conclude that her act of submission
in the past could have meant another source for her evil. With the arrival of
industrialization, it is now the moment for payback and Regina won’t lose the
opportunity to shrewdly fight this battle, even if she needs to play dirty. At
the end of the day, Regina doesn’t care about family bonds; she sees Ben and
Oscar as merely obstacles for her to make a move. Her insubordination gives
her the strength to confront patriarchy but, is she being evil in so doing? As
Mary Daly explains in Beyong God the Father, Eve, the first woman, was not
evil because of her power but because of her noncompliance. She didn’t
show esteem to the powerful, and so she was considered evil.11 Regina’s
situation at the beginning of the film is quite similar: she manipulates,
deceives, acts coldheartedly, but so far her wrongdoings are morally incorrect
actions that do not cause an insufferable harm.
Horace, a respected banker, is too kind as compared to the Hubbard
men, a bunch of evil foxes who only think about getting material benefits no
matter how. As he is a more moral character, Regina despises him more than
any other men in her life. She admires Ben’s bright —dirty— skills at
making business, but she hates Horace’s kindness. She thinks it is a weakness
in a man, and she starts to look down on him. In the nineteenth century it was
generally believed that “some women might have lessened fertility simply by
limiting sexual encounters. [And] such behavior likely affected the
marriage,”12 but Regina clearly rejected Horace because she could not stand
him. To a certain extent, money becomes for her a substitute for sex, and her
hostility towards Horace becomes partly justified by her ensuing desire to
evolve —as a valuable member of the family and as social being— and reach
equality, or even superiority to men. As “…the love of money [was] the
ultimate determinant of mate selection in twentieth century American
marriages”13 and Regina is “entirely and completely focused on making
money,”14 she expected a wealthy future from Horace. When he doesn’t
“I don’t ask for things I don’t think I can get.” Regina Giddens as
portrayal of a New Southern evil in William Wyler’s The Little Foxes
(1941)
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8
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provide her with everything she had wanted, she is not only disappointed but
also very angry, and even more eager for wealth.
Horace is resolved to limit Regina’s power and so he decides that
his Union Pacific Bonds must be treated as a loan for his brothers’ in law, not
like a share. He thinks he can actually tie Regina, but she is already too
powerful and her evil is now becoming more patent:
REGINA: Oh, I see. You are punishing me. But I won’t let you
punish me. If you won’t do anything, I will.
HORACE: You won’t do anything because you can’t. You can
make trouble. I shall say and go on saying I let them the bonds.
REGINA: You would do that?
HORACE: Yes. For once in your life, I’m tying your hands. There’s
nothing for you to do.
Regina may be cruel but, in my opinion, Horace is spiteful as well.
Maybe his intentions are not evil, yet he is the one blackmailing now. For
once, Regina is being punished and the audience can perceive the roles of
evildoer and victim as inverted. In any case, Regina seems to have been
“tied” by Horace’s affability since not long after their marriage, and hence
her determination to achieve power and be able to fight what Card would call
everyday “unjust inequalities”:
It may be argued that some unjust inequalities – inequalities that
might not in themselves be evils if they were merely sporadic or
isolated incidents in a life that is otherwise, in many respects,
flourishing – can become evils if they are very systematic. Being
arbitrarily excluded from an activity that one enjoys, and for which
one even has an aptitude, might be an example.15
Regina is therefore a victim of evil herself. She has been constantly
excluded from the life she has always wanted. She hasn’t been allowed to
have power within the family, and she has always been considered a defiant
woman for desiring something she shouldn’t wish for. But far from giving
up, she gains more power and, given the opportunity, she does not hesitate to
become a perpetrator of evil in order to definitely stop being a victim.
Ultimately, she lets Horace die and as many other well-know evil women had
done in the past, she becomes the embodiment of wickedness.
The story of the wife who refuses to save her husband —or rather,
who leads him to death— reminds us of Mourning Becomes Electra (1931),
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by Eugene O’Neill, a famous predecessor of Lillian Hellman, who, in his
trilogy takes us back to the Greek mythology. Therefore, the protagonist of
the three plays, Christine Mannon, would be a clone of Clytemnestra, the
same role Regina Giddens represents. Ezra Mannon could be compared to
Agamemnon, the ill husband, thus being the counterpart of Horace Giddens.
There is a crime in each case —in the Greek myth, in O’Neill’s play and also
in Wyler’s film— given that the merciless wives watch their husbands die
and, thus, become murderers.
In Greek mythology, Clytemnestra is known as the queen of
Peloponesus, married to Agamenon. Furious because her husband had killed
their first born, Iphigeneia, she decides to murder him. For Aeschylus,
Sophocles and Euripides, evil in the private space, that is, in the family and
the household, is epitomized in the character of Clytemnestra as woman, wife
and betrayer. Aeschylus compares her domestic evil with public social
wickedness and he understands her murder as her ascension to power. For
Sophocles, Clytemnestra is not an evil being, but she is a threat for the family
and the whole city.
In O’Neill’s trilogy, General Ezra Mannon, a Civil War hero, returns
from the battlefield and is murdered by his wife Christine. Mannon’s
daughter, Lavinia, who loved her father, swears to take revenge on her
mother for her father's death. In my opinion, Christine and Regina, like
Clytemnestra, are unhappy in their marriages and they are greedy and
materialistic, but their husbands are not mere victims, they are probably to
blame too. These women are dangerous, but the reason for their evil deeds is
their exclusion from the symbolic order within the family —institution in
which they feel supported by some members, but alone in the end— and their
exclusion from what society thinks of as purely male spheres —that is, from
anything related to money.
Representative of loneliness and an indomitable rebelliousness
against the norm is Antigone,16 another figure of the Greek tragedy, whereas
a famous example of a woman who wants to control her husband’s fortune is
Shakespeare’s great and avaricious Lady Macbeth.17 As Sadahide Kato points
out, Lady Macbeth is not a usual murderess since lust is not what she is
drawn by.”18 She is strong-willed and intelligent and, like Regina, she is
wicked in her attempt to achieve success and always be herself, without the
threat of any rival. Like Regina, Lady Macbeth uses all her persuasive
methods in order to get what she wants, but the protagonist of The Little
Foxes resorts to blackmail while Macbeth’s wife directly plots the murders
she deems necessary.
On the other hand, after analyzing the sources for Regina’s evil and
come to sympathize with her cause or even pity her to a certain extent, it is
10 “I don’t ask for things I don’t think I can get.” Regina Giddens as
portrayal of a New Southern evil in William Wyler’s The Little Foxes
(1941)
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not beyond the bounds of possibility that she may be a predecessor for a new
kind of 21st century woman. The two most common or visible tendencies of
evil women on screen are that of a female predator or a weak “femme fatale.”
Predator women appear as sexy vampires or seductive creatures full of power
and usually luscious. By way of illustration, we can mention vampire Bill
Compton’s stunning wife, the charming and commanding Queen of
Vampires, or the bewitching Maenad in one of the most successful television
series today, True Blood. Like Regina, they do not fear anything, they set
their goals, and they manage to overpower men by means of being morally
incorrect or even becoming murderesses. Nowadays, the archetype of femme
fatale of the 1940s as we all remember her from film noir has disappeared.
This femme fatale seems to have metamorphosized into a new evil woman
who, although sexually powerful, does not use her sexuality, but rather her
charm and intellect, as a tool against man. Unlike Regina, this woman is not
so tied by patriarchal rules, but she has some kind of personal problem
through which the audience is supposed to pity (or sympathize with) her as it
may be the case of Regina because of her past. As an example we could
mention the protagonists of Desperate Housewives or Sex and the City. They
are much blander female figures in comparison with Regina, but still selfish
and clearly insubordinate to men. To sum up with, they are both powerful
and pitiable, similarly to Regina. Ultimately then, we must conclude that “the
important determinants of a threatening woman are these three: intelligence,
seductiveness, and selfishness.”19
But as every action has an effect, Regina’s bad actions, inevitably, cause
many harms. Looking closely at the type of damage that she inflicts will help
us to better determine if she should be defined as an evil woman. Two of the
effects definitely worth mentioning are absolute family decay and death.
Evils, according to Card, are focused on two aspects:
One aspect is that they constitute the most serious harms – the most
profound, most lasting, least remediable – to one’s well-being or
dignity. The other is that the harm results from or is aggravated or
supported by wrongdoing (which can take the form of culpable
omissions, as in carelessness, recklessness, or callous
indifference).20
In the film we can notice both aspects. On the one hand, the harm
that Regina causes is a result of several wrongdoings (beguiling,
manipulation, blackmail) as well as of culpable omissions (unruliness,
negligence, lack of concern). On the other hand, it is an irremediable
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damage, an injury impossible to cure. Over and about that, she seems to be
conscious of every one of her wrongdoings, and so she clearly explains to
Horace why she decided to act coldheartedly with him:
HORACE: Why did you marry me?
REGINA: Because I was lonely when I was young. Yes, lonely. Not
in the way people usually mean. I was lonely for all the things I
wasn’t gonna get.
[…]
REGINA: No, it wasn’t. It wasn’t what I wanted. But it didn’t take
me long to find out my mistake. Then it was just as if I couldn’t
stand the sight of you. I couldn’t bear to have you touch me. I
thought you were such a soft, weak fool. You were so kind and
understanding when I didn’t want you near me. The lies and excuses
I used to make to you. And you believed them. That’s when I began
to despise you.
HORACE: Why didn’t you leave me?
REGINA: Where was I to go? What money did I have? Didn’t think
about it much. If I had, I’d have known you’d die before I did. But I
couldn’t have guessed you’d get heart trouble so early, so bad. I’m
lucky, Horace. I’ve always been lucky. I’ll be lucky again.
As Horace refuses to follow the Hubbards’ corrupt business
methods to amass wealth, Regina starts to despise and reject him —in and
out of bed— and make his life difficult. Without money, she had no other
option than endurance. But knowing that Horace is so sick now, she’s excited
with the idea that he will die soon and she will eventually have the life she
has always wanted. Having this kind of thought is cruel, but revealing it to
Horace in order to destabilize him is, in my opinion, utterly wicked.
With such a malevolent atmosphere created, the climatic moment
takes place. Once finished her sincerity speech to Horace, Regina seats on the
sofa, with a smile of superiority in her lips, ignoring her husband. Horace
finds it difficult to breath and tries to take his medicine, but it suddenly falls
down from his trembling hands and is spilled over the floor. He can barely
walk and his pain seems to increase. Regina’s expression changes, her smile
disappears and there’s a harsh, terrific look in her face. She is very serious
and horrified, but she seems to be thinking anyway. She doesn’t doubt for a
second. She doesn’t move. Horace understands, and he desperately tries to
call for the servant’s help, beginning to walk towards the staircase. Regina
remains still without batting an eyelid. She’s like a statue. Only her eyes turn
following Horace’s movements until he is out of her sight. She waits until the
12 “I don’t ask for things I don’t think I can get.” Regina Giddens as
portrayal of a New Southern evil in William Wyler’s The Little Foxes
(1941)
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_
very last moment, when Horace stops moving —death is imminent—, and
then she seems to suddenly come back to life. Agitated and in a rush, she
calls for the servants’ help.
Later, after talking to her brothers about the stolen bonds and asking
for a 75% share, she laughs at Ben’s attempt to get another doctor to save
Horace’s life. She’s in high spirits because she knows Horace has few
minutes of life and she foresees a life of wealth for her in the future. In
conclusion, even though she doesn’t literary poison Horace or kill him with
her own hands, there is no doubt she is a murderess and, as such, a portrayal
of evil.
Another effect of evil, to a certain extent triggered by Horace’s
death but not only, is the total destruction of the Giddens family. Horace’s
daughter, Alexandra, eventually comes to realize that her mother is not the
role model she wants for herself and decides to leave. The feelings and
concerns that Card calls “issues of attitudinal response”21 such as guilt,
forgiveness or mercy, become now especially relevant, as the focus is the
victim or its descendants. Alexandra is in this case the descendant as well as
an indirect victim, since she suffers a terrible pain because of her father’s
death and the revelation of her mother’s evil. As a consequence, she chooses
to abandon the territory of the evildoer (Regina) so as not to live under her
legacy. Contrary to Card, Kekes considers evil as something unfair and
groundless that “jeopardizes our aspirations to live good lives,”22 and he pays
more attention to the tragedy of becoming a perpetrator of evil than to the
victim’s suffering. Therefore, evildoers become the victims of their own
actions. Regina didn’t mean to cause harm to her daughter, but her
recklessness eventually led to this situation, and now she must welcome
losses together with profits, her own loneliness together with money’s
company.
Quoting Janet Brown, “in Burke’s terms, a feminist drama is one on
which the agent is a woman, her purpose autonomy, and her scene a society
in which women are powerless,”23 but Regina’s tragedy in the film is that she
uses evilness in her ascension to power. Her resolution to let Horace die is
one of the most intense moments in the film, and is representative of her
determination as well as of her malevolence.
In the end, Regina does get what she wants, so her evilness has also
some positive effects for her: by means of plotting, she easily adapts to
modern times, she gains economic and social power, and she breaks up with
male domination achieving at least equality. However, she cannot avoid the
other side of the coin, that is to say, the negative effects. In conclusion,
Regina’s wickedness works as a double-edged sword giving her
Mónica Ledo Fernández
13
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_
independence and power as well as bringing her family’s disintegration,
personal loss and her own decay.
Notes
1
Atrocity 16
Atrocity 6
3
Lebsock 215
4
Atrocity 5
5
Stuart Mill 276
6
Arrighi. Inequality, Introduction 6.
7
Gordon 294-95.
8
Chapter 3 in Censer’s work The Reconstruction of White Southern Womanhood is entitled “What will be my own”.
9
Censer 99.
10
Finney 76.
11
Mary Daly 44-68.
12
Censer 90.
13
(Wakefield 18-19)
14
Wakefield 51
15
Card. Evils and Inequalities. 93.
16
In Sophocles’ tragedy, Antigone —daughter of Oedipus and Iocasta— is punished for burying her brother, something
forbidden because he had rebelled against his own city. Antigone says she prefers to follow the divine law than the human
one.
17
Macbeth’s wife in Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth (1607). She encourages a hesitant Macbeth to kill King Duncan and
becomes finally obsessed with the idea that there is blood in her hands.
18
Kato 190.
19
Hallissy 86-7.
20
Evils and Inequalities 96
21
Atrocity 11
22
Kekes 3
23
Janet Brown 15
2
Bibliography