The Bad Seed
Grim’s Class Notes
June 2010
Background Information

The novel, The Bad Seed, by William
March, was first published in 1954 and
immediately became a much-discussed
pop-culture bestseller.

In 1955 the novel was made into the
play we are reading in class. It was
written by Maxwell Anderson.
Background Information

In 1956 The Bad Seed was also made
into a b/w movie starring, a well-known
child actor, Patty McCormack, then
remade in the 1980s.

These many versions emphasize the
fascination the public has with this story.
Brief Summary

An eight year old serial killer in the
middle of a small Southern town.

Sound like the next topic for Geraldo or
Springer? Nope, instead its the topic of
The Bad Seed.
Brief Summary

The novel, play and movies take place in the
era of Happy Days and clean-cut suburbia,
when a story about a murderous eight year
old had the power to shock and alarm.

The plot revolves around Christine Penmarke
and her little eight year old girl Rhoda. Rhoda
is a perfect little angel.
Brief Summary

That is, unless you happen to have
something she wants or make her
angry.

Then, people have a nasty habit of
coming to various gruesome ends; such
as being burned alive or pushed down a
flight of stairs.
Brief Summary

But surely these acts had to be
accidents, right? Sweet little girls just
don't do those sorts of things!

The child-murderer, Rhoda, is a freak of
nature masquerading as an angelic little
girl of eight.
Brief Summary

“Pigtailed, always immaculately dressed
and doll-like, Rhoda is “quaint”-”modest”--”Old-fashioned, a remarkable
little creature” (The Bad Seed)
Brief Summary

However, we are soon to learn that she
is machine for killing, having inherited
the “seed” or gene, for such behavior
from her mother’s mother.
Brief Summary

The novel also has an interesting
subplot that has extreme relevance to
issues today. The effect of genetics and
heredity on how a person behaves.
Brief Summary

As the reader gets farther and farther
into the plot, he/she discovers that
Rhoda's mom, the naïve Christine also
has a few skeletons in her closet as well
that just might help explain why Rhoda
is the sweet little girl she is. (Mike Nartker,
Independence Magazine)
Themes

Bad seed...bad blood...bad gene... here
is a grim genetic determinism which, if
true, renders every environmental
factor, including education, moral
instruction, religion, law, psychiatry,
love, and civilization itself, quite useless
to effect change in the allegedly afflicted
individual. (The Gene as the Unit of Selection,
W.H.Freeman, 1982, p. 23.)
Themes

Early in the play, Monica accuses
Emory of being a “larvated (masked/hidden)
homosexual.”

Most of the characters of The Bad Seed
are “larvated.”
Themes

Rhoda: the little girl is evil incarnated hiding
behind her cute little girl exterior
 Christine: the mother is hiding from the awful
truth of her mother
 Leroy: the voyeurist janitor hides his evil
thoughts allowing him to recognize Rhoda’s
hidden evil intentions.
 Bravo: the Christine’s father is hiding the truth
from his daughter.
My Thoughts

The Bad Seed is not an accomplished
piece of literature. It doesn’t have the
literary power of The Crucible, Lord of
the Flies, or The Scarlet Letter.

But it is an interesting piece of popculture and the bases of fascinating
discussion of genetics vs. environment.
Common Themes

Throughout the school year we have
and will been studying the “good and
evil” in literature.

Early in the year, we looked at how
Native Americans saw balanced in the
power of good and evil.
Common Themes

Native Americans noted that neither
“good or evil” could exist without the
other.

Evil wasn’t to be feared but to be
recognized as an element that made the
world orderly. (World on the Turtle’s
Back--Lit book)
Common Themes

The concept of good and evil in our look at
contemporary literature is not so Zen-like and
introspective.

Several of the contemporary works we read
or will read during sophomore year explore
this theme with emphasis on evil: The
Crucible, The Bad Seed, Othello, and Lord of
the Flies.
Common Themes

In Arthur Miller's The Crucible (1953),
"demonic" (but not demon-possessed)
adolescent girls conspire to bring down
essentially good, decent, independentminded adults. Miller's play, set in
seventeenth-century Salem was a
powerful critique of the anti-Communist/
Red Menace hysteria of the 1950s.
Common Themes

Evil existed in Salem but the evil was not just
the revenge, anger, and hurt of the scorned
17-year-old girl, Abigail Williams, nor the
adultery of John Proctor.

Evil sprung from the mass-hysteria that
allowed good “God-Fearing” people to do evil
things.
Common themes

As we read these other works this
semester we will see other authors’
visions of man’s evil.
Common Themes

In Lord of the Flies Ralph discovers that
the beast is the evil and sin that exists
in all of mankind. It is the darkness of
man’s heart, our original sin.

In Othello Iago is the consummate
villain--a man who enjoys evil for the
sake of evil--a machiavellian villain.
If you like this story, try reading...

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Good Son
The Exorcist
The Other
The Omen
The Changeling
Children of the Corn
Kill Baby Kill

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Child's Play
The Midwich Cuckoos
Mikey
Bloody Birthday,
“Small Assassin”
"The Veldt,"
"The Playground"
Bibliography

Bad Seed, Good Read
by Mike Nartker, Independence
Magazine
http://independence-magazine.com/v5i10.shtml

William March: The Bad Seed From the
New York Review Of Books
http://www.scaruffi.com/fiction/march.html