A Moral Discussion With A Reader
His Perilous Throne - A story from the book 'Special Treatment & Other Stories'
The story is one of bullying, control and revenge. A young man is sent to prison for a crime he claims to be innocent of - pushing his wealthy employer off a roof while they are trying to reach a toy aeroplane. The young man is considered to have learning difficulties and was brought up in a children's home. He is put into a cell with an older man who has been convicted of killing a traffic warden in a violent outburst. The older man manipulates the young man in a sinister way. He interprets the young man's previous job as having been a kind of butler to the man he killed and suggests he be his butler in prison. He humiliates the young man and abuses him in the most degrading way. The young man seems to accept this as his lot in life until one day he takes his revenge.
Me: What effect did the story have upon you?
Reader: A very powerful effect, actually. I liked the way the manipulation of the younger prisoner happened gradually and subtly. Slowly I became more and more uncomfortable with the things the older man was saying, although nothing he said was especially aggressive - not at first. Slowly I began to detest him - the older man. He was malevolent and took pleasure in humiliation. He seemed obsessed with control and using it in the most damaging way, more than gaining anything for himself. I detested his arrogance and his desire to elevate himself to the level of some kind of king, with the young man as his grovelling servant - the way he took pleasure in that and believed it. You so wanted the young man to fight back. You willed him not to give in, but he had to to avoid another horrific beating. It was unbearable. Then just when you thought the young man was doomed to years of calculated abuse, he strikes back. Not instinctively but in a planned and intelligent way. You don't expect it. The plan works perfectly. It is cunning and devastating in its execution. I found myself overjoyed. Then as I put down the book and sat thinking, I began to wonder at my joy over such a horrific and violent act. It was unlike me, I thought.
Me: What troubled you so much?
Reader: That I could take such pleasure in the harm done to this older man. That I should celebrate the termination of his life. Didn't that make me just as bad as the man who had been the sadistic bully?
Me: But you had not killed anyone. You had only celebrated the fact that a boy who'd been abused had struck back and put an end to the possibility of his being beaten or indeed killed for doing so. Cn that be so wrong?
Reader: I know all that. It's easy to justify if you explain it to yourself in simple terms, but it is not simple. It's about the pleasure gained from seeing that man killed. It makes me wonder whether we don't all have that same capacity for killing - for torture. Can revenge ever be justified?
The story 'His Perilous Throne' is available on Amazon and Smashwords as an individual story. It is also one of 12 short stories in the anthology 'Special Treatment & Other Stories', which includes the international prizewinning story Special Treatment. Or just enter the title into your local search engine.
Mark Swain on Amazon
Mark Swain on Smashwords
His Perilous Throne - A story from the book 'Special Treatment & Other Stories'
The story is one of bullying, control and revenge. A young man is sent to prison for a crime he claims to be innocent of - pushing his wealthy employer off a roof while they are trying to reach a toy aeroplane. The young man is considered to have learning difficulties and was brought up in a children's home. He is put into a cell with an older man who has been convicted of killing a traffic warden in a violent outburst. The older man manipulates the young man in a sinister way. He interprets the young man's previous job as having been a kind of butler to the man he killed and suggests he be his butler in prison. He humiliates the young man and abuses him in the most degrading way. The young man seems to accept this as his lot in life until one day he takes his revenge.
Me: What effect did the story have upon you?
Reader: A very powerful effect, actually. I liked the way the manipulation of the younger prisoner happened gradually and subtly. Slowly I became more and more uncomfortable with the things the older man was saying, although nothing he said was especially aggressive - not at first. Slowly I began to detest him - the older man. He was malevolent and took pleasure in humiliation. He seemed obsessed with control and using it in the most damaging way, more than gaining anything for himself. I detested his arrogance and his desire to elevate himself to the level of some kind of king, with the young man as his grovelling servant - the way he took pleasure in that and believed it. You so wanted the young man to fight back. You willed him not to give in, but he had to to avoid another horrific beating. It was unbearable. Then just when you thought the young man was doomed to years of calculated abuse, he strikes back. Not instinctively but in a planned and intelligent way. You don't expect it. The plan works perfectly. It is cunning and devastating in its execution. I found myself overjoyed. Then as I put down the book and sat thinking, I began to wonder at my joy over such a horrific and violent act. It was unlike me, I thought.
Me: What troubled you so much?
Reader: That I could take such pleasure in the harm done to this older man. That I should celebrate the termination of his life. Didn't that make me just as bad as the man who had been the sadistic bully?
Me: But you had not killed anyone. You had only celebrated the fact that a boy who'd been abused had struck back and put an end to the possibility of his being beaten or indeed killed for doing so. Cn that be so wrong?
Reader: I know all that. It's easy to justify if you explain it to yourself in simple terms, but it is not simple. It's about the pleasure gained from seeing that man killed. It makes me wonder whether we don't all have that same capacity for killing - for torture. Can revenge ever be justified?
The story 'His Perilous Throne' is available on Amazon and Smashwords as an individual story. It is also one of 12 short stories in the anthology 'Special Treatment & Other Stories', which includes the international prizewinning story Special Treatment. Or just enter the title into your local search engine.
Mark Swain on Amazon
Mark Swain on Smashwords
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