Perspectives on Evil and Human Wickedness 5

Session 8a: Ordinary Evil in Everyday Lives
Chair: Sandrine Berges

Inside Out and Outside In: Constructions of Evil in Contemporary British Drama
Annette Pankratz
University of Passau, Germany

Contemporary British drama abounds with examples of evil. Characters are made to suffer in a world devoid of pertinent values and certainties. In Mark Ravenhill's Shopping and Fucking a character is tortured to death through anal penetration with a knife. In Timberlake Wertenbaker's The Love of the Nightingale the protagonist is raped and mutilated by her brother-in-law. David Edgar's Speer and Donald Harwood's The Handyman explore the dynamics between the technocrats and the actual murderers in the Holocaust. Caryll Churchill's Far Away , Sarah Kane's Blasted or Abi Morgan's Splendour portray the violent chaos of civil war in countries of the former Easter block. Evil is shown to be always and everywhere: at home in Blair's "Cool Britannia" as well as abroad in the former Yugoslavia or Romania; in the mythical past of ancient Greece, in Nazi Germany or at the turn of the millennium.
The common denominator of all these seemingly diverse examples is a dialectic of violence and suffering. At first sight, evil seems to originate in social and political structures, be they the patriarchal system, Nazi suppression or consumer culture. A closer look, however, shows that evil and violence cannot be externalised that easily. In Speer, The Handyman , Far Away and Splendour supposed victims or innocent onlookers turn out to be guilty; the victims in Shopping and Fucking even deliberately choose torture and death to escape from the emptiness of their lives. Where is evil then? Everywhere? Nowhere? Is it part of human nature or a reflex of postmodern culture? The ethical aporia is carried to its extremes in plays like Anthony Neilson's Normal or Kane's Cleansed . Normal blurs the boundaries between the mass murderer and the "normal" defense lawyer. Torturer Tinker in Cleansed only carries out the wishes of the others and yet - his actions are also rooted in inhuman hatred and genuine wickedness.

No Room for Grace: Apocalypsis and Political Drama in Lars von Trier’s Dogville
Margarita Carretero-Gonzalez & Mauricio D. Aguilera Linde
Departamento de Filologias Inglesa y Alemana, Facultad de Filosofia y Letras, Campus Universitario de Cartuja, Granada, Spain

The metaphor of a small town founded upon the principles of self interest and blindness and standing for the whole nation has a long tradition in American drama and literature, which seems to permeate Lars von Trier's last experimental film, Dogville. This small-size community which is on the verge of losing the bonds of its social fabric can only be redeemed by the philosopher/artist who can change the town's fate by placing a mirror before his neighbours' lives so they can see their own vices and wash off their evil nature. This saviour-like role can also be fulfilled by an outcast who can detect the society's flaws from a vantage position and help the fellow citizens recover long undervalued virtues: faith, hope, charity (love), prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. In Dogville , it is precisely Thomas Edison, the writer, who can give back the light to a community sunk into darkness by letting Grace in, a fugitive who flees from the dictates of a merciless father.
The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we intend to analyse the way the feature film's motifs and thematic forces owe a great deal to the American drama of the thirties. Bare stage, props replaced by gestural signs, use of the chorus and rejection of the backdrop are all devices abundantly employed during the Great Depression, and endowed with a didactic function of clear Brechtian resonance. Secondly, we pursue to interpret the rich store of metaphors which convey the idea that Dogville stands as a microcosm reflecting the director's pessimism about the human condition. Despite Grace's efforts to infuse the villagers with her spirit, they cling to their old evil nature, treating her as a commodity they use and abuse for their own benefit. The outcome is even more discouraging since we do not only witness Grace's downfall but also the definite loss of the innocence she incarnates.

The Banality of Evil: A Portrayal
Nancy Marder
Professor of Law, Chicago-Kent College of Law, Chicago, USA

Popular culture thrives on a portrayal of evil as murder, mayhem, and violence. Today's movies try to “outdo” predecessors with gruesome acts committed by egregious monsters. Unfortunately, this media depiction of evil has lost its power to explore the much greater evil that humankind faces when societies destroy, impoverish, and enslave on a massive scale as a result of small actions taken by ordinary citizens. Hannah Arendt captured this evil in her phrase “the banality of evil.” Ironically, the phrase and its meaning have become banal – too often repeated to form the basis for depictions by the media, which must always strive for the new and different.
In 1957, however, a black-and-white film, having virtually no action, and taking place in a locked room, created a portrait that more chillingly reveals the evil around us that, but for constant vigilance, can unleash the worst forms of terror.
This film, “12 Angry Men,” offers a portrayal that allows us to explore the evil of indifference that is far more pervasive and powerful than the evil of monsters common in film but rare in life. "12 Angry Men" is best known for its portrayal of a highly-charged jury deliberation. It is also recognized for its fine ensemble cast, including Henry Fonda. What it is not known for, however, and which I intend to take as the focus of my paper, is its depiction of everyday acts by ordinary men that have the potential to lead to unspeakable evil. The lesson is made more poignant by the setting: our legal system. My paper will show how the indifference and personal biases of individuals can so easily allow the machinery of the state to murder an innocent boy and how only a keen sense of individual responsibility can keep such evil in check.