Darkness that never quite goes away
Simon Jarrett on three short stories reflecting society’s prejudices through the ages, even today
Joseph Conrad The Idiots, 1898
Eudora Welty Lily Daw and the three ladies, 1941
Lars Gustaffson
Greatness strikes where it pleases, 1981
There has always been a dark side to society’s view of those they regard as less intelligent, less fit to belong. The nature and intensity of that darkness can fluctuate and take different forms over time but it is still there today.
Three short stories show us that darkness in different periods of history, unconsciously expressed by authors steeped in the assumptions of their times.
The bleakest tale
Conrad’s Idiots, set in late 19th century France, is about as bleak a tale as you can get. A peasant couple give birth to four ‘idiot’ children and their already miserable lives descend into alcoholism and violence, culminating in murder and suicide. The children, only ever referred to as idiots or creatures, are left to roam the barren countryside, howling ‘according to the inexplicable impulses of their monstrous darkness’, merging into the landscape like beasts.
Deep South and Far North
Lily Daw and the three ladies describes the American Deep South of the 1930s. The motherless and mildly retarded Lily is looked after by the town’s three eccentric, wealthy, leading ladies. Once she becomes ‘too mature’ (meaning sexually developed) they decide she should be admitted to the ‘Ellisville Institute for the Feeble-minded of Mississippi.’ News that she has a place there is greeted as if she is going to an elite university. Horrified when they then hear that a man has proposed marriage to her, she is quickly bundled onto a train bound for Ellisville. However, as the train is about to depart they discover that the marriage proposal is from a tiny, hearing-impaired xylophone player in a travelling fair. They deem him a suitable match for Lily and manage to whisk her off the train just before it departs.
Darkness through the ages
In Greatness strikes where it pleases, Gustaffson tells the tale of a child taken from his family home, a remote farm in 1940s Sweden, to a long-stay institution. There he rots away, with a brief glimmer of happiness for two years when a gifted teacher involves him in woodwork. The story ends in 1977 with him (he is never named), ‘shapeless in his lounger’ in a newly built home, watching the trees live and die through his window.
These three stories, set in the ‘degeneration’ era of the late 19th century, the eugenics scare period of the 1930s and the hospitalisation and community ‘resettlement’ post-war years, are depressingly similar.
Conrad weaves together a knot of misery, violence and pain caused by the birth of idiots into the world. Eudora Welty’s tale of Lily appears at first lighter and happier, but shows a young woman entirely at the mercy of the whims of those who choose to take responsibility for her. The town’s brass band turns out to cheer a retarded person onto the train to the institution, as if celebrating a marriage. Gustaffson’s unnamed ‘hero’ merges into the bleak landscape he inhabits, a life wasted and unremarked, just like Conrad’s idiot children.
The darkness never quite goes away.
