Performativity of Villainy and Evil in Anglophone Literature and Media

Performativity of Villainy and Evil in Anglophone Literature and Media studies the performative nature of evil characters, acts and emotions across intersecting genres, disciplines and historical eras. This collection brings together scholars and artists with different institutional standings, cultural backgrounds and (inter)disciplinary interests with the aim of energizing the ongoing discussion of the generic and thematic issues related to the representation of villainy and evil in literature and media. The volume covers medieval literature to contemporary literature and also examines important aspects of evil in literature such as social and political identity, the gothic and systemic evil practices. In addition to literature, the book considers examples of villainy in film, TV and media, revealing that performance, performative control and maneuverability are the common characteristics of villains across the different literary and filmic genres and eras studied in the volume. Preface: The Story Behind/of the Book Acknowledgments Introduction Contents Notes on Contributors Part I The (Dis)Embodiment of Evil in Medieval and Renaissance Moments 1 Contours of an Inherent Frame: The Underpinnings of Evil in Everyman References 2 If You Only Knew: Mephistopheles, Master Mirror, and the Experience of Evil The Elusiveness of Evil in Doctor Faustus Playing with Knowledge The Patience of Evil References 3 Recognizable Patterns of Evil in Muslim Characters in Late Medieval and Early Modern Literature References 4 Desiring Empire: The Colonial Violence of “Hijab Pornography” References 5 Villains of the High Seas: Apostasy and Piracy in George Peele’s The Battle of Alcazar, The Anonymously Authored Captain Thomas Stukeley, and William Daborne’s A Christian Turned Turk The Barbary Corsairs: Piracy’s Turkish Turn “A Face So Full of Fraud and Villainy”: Muly Mahamet and Captain Thomas Stukeley “Ward Sold His Country, Turned Turk, and Died a Slave”: Daborne’s Pirate Villain References Part II Performing Moral Deformity in the Shakespearean Moment 6 The Psychological Origins of Evil: The Trickster in Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi Introduction The Psychology of Evil: The Trickster’s Dread Ferdinand: Webster’s Trickster Conclusion References 7 A Show of Illusions: Performing Villainous Magic in Shakespeare’s The Tempest & Macbeth Performing Villains in Shakespeare The Dark Triad of Personality Magic and Power References 8 The Demon’s Amorous Looking Glass: Reflections on the Villain’s Performative Self-Fashioning in Richard III by William Shakespeare References 9 “It Is His Hand”: Villainy Through Letters in Shakespeare’s King Lear and Twelfth Night Introduction “A Fustian Riddle”: The Anti-Familiar Letter “Grounds of Faith”: Addressing Belief in/to the Letter Conclusion References 10 Villainy as a Facet of Nietzsche’s Wirkliche Historie Prefigured in Shakespeare’s Richard II and Concretized in Brecht’s Man Equals Man and the Measures Taken Introduction Villainy in the Measures Taken and Man Equals Man as the Killing of the Christian God Shakespeare’s Redefinition of Villainy: From Bolingbroke’s coup to the Strain of Monumental History Conclusion References Part III Language, Race and the Dehumanization of the Evil Other in (Post)Colonial Moments 11 Tituba’s Stairway: Representations of Tituba in Historical and Fictional Texts Introduction Part I: Tituba’s Vilification Literary Representations of Tituba Historical Representations of Tituba Part II—Tituba as a Metaphor for Trouble in Salem Part III—Toward a New Woman Breslaw’s Tituba Condé’s Tituba—I, Tituba References 12 Colonial “Idea” and “Work”: The Evil in Marlow’s Heart of Darkness The Good Service Marlow as a Colonial Worker References 13 Caught in a Feudal Hang-Up: My Feudal Lord Mirroring a Villain and the Rebellion of a Pakistani Woman Colonial Power Disguised in Feudalism Myth of Changing Woman Khar Performs a ‘Husband’: The Villain Khar Performs a ‘Feudal Lord’: Incarnation of Devil Khar Performs a ‘Politician and Seducer’: ‘Law of Jungle’ Conclusion References 14 Good Versus Evil in Max’s Lucha Libre Adventures Series (2011–2020) by Xavier Garza Introduction to Author Xavier Garza The Craft of Lucha Libre and the Fame of Luchadores Tío Rodolfo as the Guardian Angel: Even a Champion Has Regrets Inheriting Roles: Who Will Be the Next Guardian Angel? Gender Issues and Lucha Libre Royalty The Fallen Angel of Catemaco “Only Legends Live Forever” References Part IV Obsessed Avengers, Revenants and Vampires in the British and American Romantic Moments 15 Melville and Ford: Ahab and the Duke The Narratives The Environments Of Heroes and Villains Of Whales and Indians From Hell’s Heart Summary References 16 Naught Beyond: A Phenomenology of Ahab’s “Madness Maddened” The Nineteenth-Century Philosophical Romance Reading Ahab and Ismael: Performance and Audience World Language Poetry Ahab’s Discourse References 17 Seductive Female Villains and Rhetoricians in The Monk and Zofloya; or, The Moor Matilda—A Mutable Villain Victoria—A Persuasive Villain References 18 Dressed to Kill: Manipulating Perceived Social Class Through the Con of Clothing in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Fiction The Mutability of Clothing and Reinvention Clothing as Proof of Belonging “An Oxford Man! He Wears a Pink Suit”: Disbelief from Peers Decadence Dissolved: The Repercussions References 19 Supernatural Doppelgangers: Manifestations of Villainy in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights References Part V A World of Dark Secrets: Espionage, Silent Wars, and the Threat of Nuclear Annihilation in the Post-World War Moments 20 Debating ‘the Nuclear Evil’ in U.S. Nuclear Fiction Introduction ‘Scientific Findings, Some Lending Themselves to Evil, Some to Good, and Some to Both’: On Subjectivity of Scientific Findings The ‘Invisible Evil’ The Materialization of Evil The Soviet Bureaucracy as a Source of Evil Conclusion References 21 The Evil Gaze of the State and the PostHuman Interrogator in 1984 References 22 Wicked Speech and Evil Acts: Performativity as Discourse and Murder as Responsibility in Curtain—Poirot’s Last Case (1975) and Speedy Death (1929) Introduction Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case Leading Villain: Stephen Norton Circumstantial Murderers Minor Villains Speedy Death Leading Villains Circumstantial Murderers Minor Villains Conclusions Bibliography 23 Host of Otherness: The Trope of the Urban Space Habitat and the Concept of Evil in Contemporary Science Fiction Media References Part VI Good Criticism of Evil Art: Studying Evil in Revisionist Academic and Cultural Moments 24 Busting Binaries: Beyond Evil in Youth Literature, a Consideration of Emezi’s Pet Literature and Empathy Terms and Reading Strategies Beyond Binary: Pet Conclusions Appendix A References 25 On the Performance of Villainy and Evil in Joker (2019) The Rise of the Comic-Book Villain Performing the Tragedy of Villainy and Evil Performing the Multiple Self Through the Mask and Costume The Many Faces of Arthur Fleck Crying, Smiling, and Laughing References 26 “Making Our Work of Art a Masterpiece”: The Aesthetics of Evil in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope References 27 Textual Evil and Performative Precarity in Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho Introduction Ellis’ True Offense: American Psycho’s Critical Reception Polysemous Performativity: Invocation, Parody, and Precarity ‘I’m Not the Boy Next Door, I’m a Fucking Evil Psychopath’: American Psycho’s Performative Precarity Conclusion References Index