Eh what, depictions of gratuitous male violence and overuse of the word "cunt"? I'm alarmed, I'm distressed, somebody help me...
The short story is a beautifully observed character depiction, written in the first person, by a man who is coarse, uneducated and impulsively violent. We all know that such men exist yes?
In the same way that a well executed painting conveys immense complexity with just a few brush strokes, this short story conveys a multi-layered exploration of the more brutal elements of this man’s character, whilst also conveying his protective fatherly instincts towards his child, his compassion for an unfortunate man in a bear costume (a man he had previously violently assaulted), and his own perception of his compassionate nature, a perception that is somewhat inflated.
The word “cunt” is liberally used throughout as the piece is written in a (Glaswegian?) vernacular, in a sub-culture where the word is used frequently to convey a range of emotions from contempt to deep affection for a friend. The use of the word anchors the narrator in a specific class, time and place.
This thread reminded me of the story because the story shares a number of central themes with the thread, namely;
- that young children are not infrequently frightened by people in fancy dress costumes
- parents are, naturally, protective towards their children regardless of the intent of the person in the costume
- the person in the costume can suffer punitive consequences due to reactions from those concerned to protect children from people in fancy dress costumes
The story explored the extent to which we should hold an individual person accountable for the distress caused to children and easily frightened people by people wearing fancy dress costumes in public
It also explores the extent to which the people concerned to protect children and easily frightened people from being scared can themselves become oppressive by taking action (or in this case demanding that the police take action)
A person taking action to stop a child being scared in such a situation can subsequently feel remorse when they perceive the person in fancy dress being oppressed, as happens in the short story and may happen here if the person in the plague doctor costume is found to be a woman, a person with Aspergers, or just a well meaning, harmless eccentric who ends up extremely distressed when the police call to “check their thinking”.
It is this last point that is the most interesting to me. A person in a fancy dress costume is the focus for all kinds of projected anxieties and can appear comical or fascinating to one person, monstrous and terrifying to another.
When the mask is removed we see the human being inside, someone who is vulnerable, scared and who needs to pay the rent, just like us. It is when the mask comes off that we can identify the person as a real flesh and blood human being.