As children, most of us always want to be the hero of our role plays. However, actors often say that playing the villain is far more enjoyable because it gives them much more scope to explore the character they are playing. This month, I'm giving the villains centre stage on the blog and looking at my five favourite villains in literature.
Caroline Bingley
The antagonist of Pride and Prejudice has always fascinated me for a number of reasons. The main one of these is that I could never understand how she managed to get so fixated on Mr Darcy. She was a wealthy young woman, albeit with a background in trade and would surely have been pursued for her money in her own right. Consequently, what was it that made her think she had a chance with someone so aloof and opinionated and more to the point, why would she want that? I fully accept that social climbing was an aspiration shared by many, but given that he gave her no encouragement whatsoever, what made her think she could win him over? It would be easy to dismiss her as merely self-deluded, but I believe that does her a disservice. She is certainly astute enough to understand that Elizabeth Bennett is a threat to her ambitions, so clearly she knows that her hold over Mr Darcy is tenuous at best. If she can see this, then why is she still so convinced she can win him over? It makes no sense. Over the years, I've concocted many scenarios about what brought her to that position and an idea for a novel telling her story has been brewing for over a decade.
2. Mrs Danvers
The housekeeper in Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca is a character who is known even by people who have not read the book, such is her renown. She is manipulative and her insidious influence over the second Mrs DeWinter only grows throughout the book. The beauty of the character however, is that her motivation is so utterly believable. Having been the devoted maid of Rebecca's childhood, it is natural that she might resent both the woman who replaced her and the man who did the replacing. She is not blind to Rebecca's faults; she loves her in spite of them and I don't think she can forgive Maxim for not doing the same. In the end, I think it is the revelation that her beloved Rebecca kept secrets even from her, that tips her over into the full blown madness that precedes the end of the novel. In her despair that her devotion was not returned, she is determined to erase everything connected to that pain. Thus, the reader finds themselves feeling a little sympathy towards this thoroughly unlikeable woman and this is just as unsettling as her madness is.
3. Dracula
This character has to be included on the list, simply because of the effect that reading the book had on me. I freely admit that I am terrified of him and that I retain a certain amount of trauma from childhood because of him. As a very young child, I was allowed to roam freely around Blackpool Tower and there used to be a sort of Chamber of Horrors style exhibit. I remember nothing about it except that one of the displays was of Dracula. His coffin used to open and he leaned out looking menacing, if I remember correctly. I was scared witless by this, but felt compelled to go back again and again to it. This was in spite of regular nightmares about being chased through the Tower corridors by the model. A little older, I read the Ladybird version of the story while sitting in Anchorsholme library. I had nightmares every night for a week. Wisely, I left the book alone for many years! However, I came back to it as an adult, thinking that perhaps at the grand old age of thirty-something, I would be able to read the book. I was a grown-up, after all. Surely my fear was consigned to my childhood. (We'll ignore the inconvenient fact that I still occasionally had nightmares about that model from the Tower!) Alas, it wasn't. I read the first half of the book and started having regular nightmares again. Once more, I had to put it to one side and over the next three years I read a little bit at a time, putting the book away for a while every time I felt unsettled by it. I cannot explain precisely why this character has such a hold over me. I love Whitby, particularly the Abbey and I even appreciate its association with the book. But, for whatever reason, and in spite of its brilliance and the fact I'd love to give it another go, it's not a book I can see myself being able to read again, if only because I need my sleep! (Even trying to find an image for this, made me incredibly twitchy...)
4. Corinne Dollanganger
Flowers in the Attic is one of those books that pretty much everyone my age read as a teenager and it's a pretty messed up story. At the time however, I absolutely loved the series and found it much less disturbing than I probably should have done. At its heart is repeated incest and murder and a whole lot more sex than I was used to reading about. It's a series that stayed with me and I have them on my kindle to re-read when I get the chance. The reason for this is that I'm curious to see how my reading of them has changed over the years and whether my reactions to and feelings about the characters have altered. I think the reason Corinne is such a good villain is because she is pretty and believes herself to be a good person. Certainly, before I finished the book, I would have had Olivia pegged as the villain of the piece. However, whilst she is definitely an unpleasant character, by the end of the book, it Corinne who comes out worst. By the time I finished reading Garden of Shadows, the prequel which tells Olivia's story, I was - if not sympathetic towards her - then at least a little more understanding of how she ended up so twisted. Corinne, on the other hand, is revealed to have been spoilt and selfish almost from the beginning.
5. Bill Sikes
This is another character who terrified me as a child and still leaves me very unsettled as an adult. A large part of this is due to his portrayal in film and on stage, but when I read the book my fear of him did not lessen. I think the reason for this was because this was my first experience of violence towards women and it opened my eyes to how vulnerable it could be. Nancy loves Bill and is utterly devoted to him, but that counts for nothing when she doesn't do exactly what he expects of her and she pays for that one act of charity with her life. Of course, this was exactly Dickens' intention. Bill Sikes is what happens when violence towards women and children is unchecked and even expected and in Victorian times, both were deemed acceptable within certain parameters. Even today, domestic abuse is still largely male on female (although I recognise this is not always the case) and is often incredibly difficult to prosecute, particularly if the abuse is emotional rather than physical. I don't like not being in control and so the thought that even the adults are so terrified of Bill Sikes that he can control everything they do, is where my unease springs from. I love the songs from the musical, but I don't like the story and it's a book where one reading was enough for me.
There are so many other villains I could have chosen. From Harry Potter alone, I could have picked three. Umbridge is just plain wicked, but Snape turns out not to be a villain after all and Malfoy is just a lost little boy out of his depth by the end of Book 7 - he is a product of his parents and therefore not really a true villain in my view. I suspect he became a better adult than he was a child. There are hundreds of others I could have made a case for - Cruella De Vil, the White Witch etc etc. The ones on this list are just a handful who made a deeper impression upon me.
Feel free to share your favourite villains in the comments!
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