The Bad Seed

Grim’s Class Notes

June 2010
Background Information

 The novel, The Bad Seed, by William

March, was first published in 1954 and
immediately became a much-discussed
pop-culture bestseller.

 In 1955 the novel was made into the

play we are reading in class. It was
written by Maxwell Anderson.
Background Information

 In 1956 The Bad Seed was also made

into a b/w movie starring, a well-known
child actor, Patty McCormack, then
remade in the 1980s.

 These many versions emphasize the

fascination the public has with this story.
Brief Summary

 An eight year old serial killer in the

middle of a small Southern town.

 Sound like the next topic for Geraldo or

Springer? Nope, instead its the topic of
The Bad Seed.
Brief Summary

 The novel, play and movies take place in the

era of Happy Days and clean-cut suburbia,
when a story about a murderous eight year
old had the power to shock and alarm.

 The plot revolves around Christine Penmarke

and her little eight year old girl Rhoda. Rhoda
is a perfect little angel.
Brief Summary

 That is, unless you happen to have

something she wants or make her
angry.

 Then, people have a nasty habit of

coming to various gruesome ends; such
as being burned alive or pushed down a
flight of stairs.
Brief Summary

 But surely these acts had to be

accidents, right? Sweet little girls just
don't do those sorts of things!

 The child-murderer, Rhoda, is a freak of

nature masquerading as an angelic little
girl of eight.
Brief Summary

 “Pigtailed, always immaculately dressed

and doll-like, Rhoda is “quaint”--
”modest”--”Old-fashioned, a remarkable
little creature” (The Bad Seed)
Brief Summary

 However, we are soon to learn that she

is machine for killing, having inherited
the “seed” or gene, for such behavior
from her mother’s mother.
Brief Summary

 The novel also has an interesting

subplot that has extreme relevance to
issues today. The effect of genetics and
heredity on how a person behaves.
Brief Summary

 As the reader gets farther and farther

into the plot, he/she discovers that
Rhoda's mom, the naïve Christine also
has a few skeletons in her closet as well
that just might help explain why Rhoda
is the sweet little girl she is. (Mike Nartker,
Independence Magazine)
Themes

 Bad seed...bad blood...bad gene... here

is a grim genetic determinism which, if
true, renders every environmental
factor, including education, moral
instruction, religion, law, psychiatry,
love, and civilization itself, quite useless
to effect change in the allegedly afflicted
individual. (The Gene as the Unit of Selection,
W.H.Freeman, 1982, p. 23.)
Themes

 Early in the play, Monica accuses

Emory of being a “larvated (masked/hidden)
homosexual.”

 Most of the characters of The Bad Seed

are “larvated.”
Themes
 Rhoda: the little girl is evil incarnated hiding
behind her cute little girl exterior
 Christine: the mother is hiding from the awful
truth of her mother
 Leroy: the voyeurist janitor hides his evil
thoughts allowing him to recognize Rhoda’s
hidden evil intentions.
 Bravo: the Christine’s father is hiding the truth
from his daughter.
My Thoughts

 The Bad Seed is not an accomplished

piece of literature. It doesn’t have the
literary power of The Crucible, Lord of
the Flies, or The Scarlet Letter.

 But it is an interesting piece of pop-

culture and the bases of fascinating
discussion of genetics vs. environment.
Common Themes

 Throughout the school year we have

and will been studying the “good and
evil” in literature.

 Early in the year, we looked at how

Native Americans saw balanced in the
power of good and evil.
Common Themes

 Native Americans noted that neither

“good or evil” could exist without the
other.

 Evil wasn’t to be feared but to be

recognized as an element that made the
world orderly. (World on the Turtle’s
Back--Lit book)
Common Themes

 The concept of good and evil in our look at

contemporary literature is not so Zen-like and
introspective.

 Several of the contemporary works we read

or will read during sophomore year explore
this theme with emphasis on evil: The
Crucible, The Bad Seed, Othello, and Lord of
the Flies.
Common Themes

 In Arthur Miller's The Crucible (1953),

"demonic" (but not demon-possessed)
adolescent girls conspire to bring down
essentially good, decent, independent-
minded adults. Miller's play, set in
seventeenth-century Salem was a
powerful critique of the anti-Communist/
Red Menace hysteria of the 1950s.
Common Themes

 Evil existed in Salem but the evil was not just

the revenge, anger, and hurt of the scorned
17-year-old girl, Abigail Williams, nor the
adultery of John Proctor.

 Evil sprung from the mass-hysteria that

allowed good “God-Fearing” people to do evil
things.
Common themes

 As we read these other works this

semester we will see other authors’
visions of man’s evil.
Common Themes

 In Lord of the Flies Ralph discovers that

the beast is the evil and sin that exists
in all of mankind. It is the darkness of
man’s heart, our original sin.

 In Othello Iago is the consummate

villain--a man who enjoys evil for the
sake of evil--a machiavellian villain.
If you like this story, try reading...

 Good Son  Child's Play

 The Exorcist  The Midwich Cuckoos
 The Other  Mikey
 The Omen  Bloody Birthday,
 The Changeling  “Small Assassin”
 Children of the Corn  "The Veldt,"
 Kill Baby Kill  "The Playground"
Bibliography

 Bad Seed, Good Read

by Mike Nartker, Independence
Magazine
http://independence-magazine.com/v5i10.shtml

 William March: The Bad Seed From the

New York Review Of Books
http://www.scaruffi.com/fiction/march.html