The Bad Seed

This article is about the William March novel. For other uses, see Bad Seed (disambiguation).
The Bad Seed

First edition
Author William March
Country United States
Language English
Genre Psychological horror
Publisher Rinehart & Company
Publication date
 April 8, 1954
Media type Print (Hardcover & paperback)
Pages 247 pp (reprint edition)
ISBN 978-0-06-079548-1 (reprint edition)
OCLC 61157841
Preceded by October Island (1952)
Followed by A William March Omnibus (1956)

The Bad Seed is a 1954 novel by American writer William March, the last of his major works published before his death.

Nominated for the 1955 National Book Award for Fiction, The Bad Seed tells the story of a mother's realization that her young daughter has committed a murder, or two. Its enormous critical and commercial success was largely realized after March's death only one month after publication.

In 1954 the novel was adapted into a successful and long-running Broadway play by Maxwell Anderson, and in 1956 into an Academy Award-nominated film directed by Mervyn LeRoy.

Plot summary

Eight-year-old Rhoda Penmark appears to be what every little girl brought up in a loving home should be. Outwardly, she is charming, polite and intelligent beyond her years. To most adults, she's every parent's dream: obedient, well groomed, unassuming and compliant. She does her homework on time, gets good grades and attends Sunday school each and every week. However, most children who know Rhoda keep their distance from her, sensing that there is something not quite right about her.

Rhoda is the only child of Kenneth and Christine Penmark. Kenneth, a Military Officer, goes away on business, leaving his wife Christine, a beautiful homemaker, at their apartment home with Rhoda. Christine begins to notice that Rhoda is acting strangely toward one of her classmates, Claude Daigle, who mysteriously drowns at a school picnic not much later. When news of the boy's death reaches Christine and Rhoda, Christine notices Rhoda is indifferent about the loss. Claude's death is presumed accidental, but one detail was unexplained: his face was imprinted and dappled with strange crescent shaped marks. Christine learns that Rhoda quarreled with Claude over a perfect penmanship medal award that the boy won, but which Rhoda believed she deserved more, and has lied about the last time she saw her now deceased classmate.

Faced with Rhoda's deception, Christine begins to reevaluate a few troubling incidents from the past. After Rhoda had begged her parents for a pet dog, she quickly became bored with it, and the animal died in what Rhoda described as an "accidental fall" from the apartment window. An elderly neighbor in Baltimore had promised Rhoda a special necklace upon her death, and soon after died from a fall down the stairs while babysitting Rhoda, who now proudly owns the necklace. Additionally, Rhoda was once expelled from a school for repeatedly being caught lying to teachers and staff who described Rhoda as a "cold, self-sufficient child who plays by her own rules".

Disturbed by the idea that her daughter might indeed be the one behind all these tragedies, Christine begins investigating true crime stories and indirectly asks friends for advice under the guise of writing a novel. Soon Christine discovers that she was adopted as a young child and that her birth mother is Bessie Denker, a notorious serial killer who died in the electric chair, and of whom Christine has vague, fragmented memories. Christine feels responsible and blames herself for passing on the murderous "bad seed" genetic to her child, yet clings to the hope that Rhoda might have killed Claude by accident during a squabble over the medal, and is just too afraid to tell anyone. Christine writes a series of lengthy, tortured letters to her husband expressing her worries about Rhoda, but never mails them in fear of what may happen if he, or someone else reads the letters and goes to the authorities. Instead, Christine chooses to wait until Kenneth comes home to tell him in person.

In the meantime, Leroy Jessup, the crude-minded maintenance man who works and lives at the Penmark's apartment complex, is the only other adult besides Christine who even partially sees through Rhoda's phony yet charming facade. Believing that Rhoda's sweet persona conceals nothing worse than a mean streak, he relentlessly teases her about her supposed cruelty, pretending to believe her responsible for Claude's death. Rhoda is unfazed by Leroy's teasing, until he tells Rhoda that police can discover traces of blood even after the blood has been cleaned. To taunt Rhoda even more, Leroy then pretends to believe she used her cleated shoes to beat Claude, explaining the crescent-shaped marks left on the boy's face. Immediately after, Leroy realizes he has guessed correctly about Rhoda's dark secret by the way Rhoda reacts to his accusations. Afraid Leroy will expose her, Rhoda makes plans to shut Leroy up for good, waiting until he's asleep in his shed and lights his mattress ablaze before locking him inside, to be consumed by the flames. A horrified Christine witnesses the heartless murder from a distance: it occurs so quickly and smoothly she doesn't have time to get help or intervene. Other people attribute Leroy's death to be accidental by falling asleep while smoking, thus starting the fire.

Christine summons up the courage to confront Rhoda, who of course, initially attempts to lie and manipulate her mother before finally confessing to killing Claude, Leroy and their elderly neighbor in Baltimore, all the while shifting blame to the victims and expressing absolutely no remorse. Christine is now unable to deny her assumptions regarding Rhoda's appalling crimes and fears that Rhoda will eventually be taken out of society forever and end up like Bessie Denker in the electric chair. In a desperate attempt to prevent Rhoda from killing anyone else and to save her daughter from a fate nearly worse than death, Christine secretly gives Rhoda an entire bottle of sleeping pills so she will die painlessly in an overdose. Devastated by what she has done, Christine then shoots herself in the head and commits suicide.

Christine dies, but a nearby neighbor hears the gun shot go off and finds Rhoda, who is still alive, but barely so. She is rushed to the hospital and survives. A heartbroken Kenneth returns home from his business trip, believing that Christine had suffered a nervous breakdown. And with no one wiser as to what she has done, Rhoda is free to kill again.

Character list

Major characters

Minor characters

Primary theme

Nature versus nurture

In the decade the novel was published, juvenile delinquency began to be far more common, or at least more extensively reported and documented. Compared to earlier history, the idea of child crimes was a new phenomenon. A controversy about nature and nurture arose as psychiatric explanations were proposed for juvenile delinquency, with the debate being whether inborn tendencies ("nature") are more or less important than environmental factors ("nurture") in explaining deviant behavior.

Supporters of the “nature” side suggested that some people are born evil or with malicious tendencies. The idea that nature prevails over nurture is implied in The Bad Seed. March incorporates the notion that a murderous genetic trait is being passed down through the generations. Within the plot of the story, Rhoda is a serial murderer just like her grandmother, having inherited the murderous gene. Rhoda had been brought up as a privileged child; she was nurtured emotionally and physically and thus a broken homelife was not to blame for her actions. Reginald Tasker hints and suggests at the idea of nature taking effect when he quotes that "some people are just born evil", when discussing Bessie Denker with Christine.

Psychologist Robert D. Hare, who argues that the evidence suggests psychopathy is an inborn trait, discusses The Bad Seed in his 1993 non-fiction book Without Conscience. A lengthy quote from the novel opens Hare's book, describing in March's words how most decent individuals are not by nature suspicious and thus unable to understand or anticipate the acts of evil and depravity that some people are capable of committing. Later in his book, Hare argues that March's novel is a "remarkably true to life" portrayal of the development of psychopathy in childhood, illustrating both Rhoda's callous use of others to serve her own ends as well as Christine's growing helplessness and desperation as she realizes the extent of her daughter's behavior.[1]

Reviews

"Let it be said quickly: William March knows where human fears and secrets are buried. He announced it in Company K, a novel published twenty years ago and equaled only by Dos Passos' Three Soldiers as a sampling of men at war. He has proved it again and again in the other novels and short stories, all of them floored and walled in what Clifton Fadiman decided to call "Psychological acumen". But nowhere is this gift better displayed than in The Bad Seed — the portrayal of a coldly evil, murderous child and what she does to both victims and family. In the author's hands this is adequate material for an absolutely first class novel of moral bewilderments and responsibilities nearest the heart of our decade."[2]
"Dark, original, ultimately appalling, William March's extraordinary new novel is, on the obvious level, a straightforward, technically accomplished story of suspense. The manner of its telling — the dispassionate, exact, almost starched prose, with its occasional glints of sardonic humor — is an impressive achievement in itself. It lends some credibility to a narrative against which the imagination rebels; and towards the end, as horror is piled upon horror, it saves the book from falling headlong into absurdity... This is a novel bound to arouse strong responses, to generate vehement discussion, and so not easily to be forgotten."[3]
"The Bad Seed would have been a stronger novel without this false premise — the granddaughter of a murderess is no more likely to be a murderess than the granddaughter of a seamstress, or anyone else. Apart from this flaw, however, The Bad Seed is a novel of suspense and mounting horror, which the reader who can close his eyes to March's unnecessary premise will enjoy as the work of one of the most satisfying of American novelists."[4]
"The Bad Seed is terrifyingly good, not only because its theme is worked out so powerfully, but because every character is convincing. One has to believe that these appalling things took place exactly as the author says they did."[5]

Adaptations

Broadway play

Main article: The Bad Seed (play)
Maxwell Anderson, adapted The Bad Seed into a play

Maxwell Anderson adapted the book for the stage almost immediately after its publication. Anderson had previously won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award in 1935 and 1936 for his plays Winterset and High Tor, as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1933 for his play Both Your Houses. Reginald Denham directed the play using Anderson's script. The play opened on Broadway on December 8, 1954 at the 46th Street Theatre (now the Richard Rodgers Theatre), less than a year after the publication of the novel.

On April 25, 1955, the play transferred to the Coronet Theatre (now the Eugene O'Neill Theatre), where it completed its successful run of 334 performances on September 27, 1955. Nancy Kelly, the actress who played Christine, won the 1955 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. The audience made claims that Patty McCormack, the child actress who played Rhoda, was the most memorable character.[6]

1956 film

Mervyn LeRoy was the director of the 1956 movie. In LeRoy's Hollywood career, he produced and or directed over 70 films including Little Caesar and Little Women. Nancy Kelly, Patty McCormack and the majority of the original cast acted in the 1956 movie. The ending of the 1956 film was changed from the novel in order to comply with the Hays Code. Rhoda is struck and killed abruptly by lightning when she goes back to the scene of her crime to retrieve the medal, while Christine survives her suicide attempt. During the closing credits, LeRoy added a light-hearted sequence of Nancy Kelly, Christine, holding Patty McCormack, Rhoda, over her leg and spanking her — possibly to remind audiences that this is just a play.[7]

1985 film

The Bad Seed was remade as a television movie in 1985, adapted by George Eckstein and directed by Paul Wendkos and kept the novel's original ending. It starred Blair Brown as Christine, Lynn Redgrave as Monica, David Carradine as Leroy, Richard Kiley as Richard Bravo, and Chad Allen as Claude Daigle. Carrie Wells played the title character, whose name was modernized as "Rachel." The TV-movie version was considered inferior to both the play and original film.[7]

Potential remake

Eli Roth was set to direct a new remake of the film, as stated by MovieWeb.com. Roth promised a new take with a modern horror sensibility. "The original was a great psychological thriller, and we are going to bastardize and exploit it, ramping up the body counts and killings," said Roth. "This is going to be scary, bloody fun, and we're going to create the next horror icon, a la Freddy, Jason and Chucky. She's this cute, cunning, adorable kid who loves to kill, but also loves 'N Sync."[8]

Bibliography

  1. ↑ Hare, Robert D. ([1993], 1999)Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us, The Guildford Press, pp. 155-156
  2. ↑ Showalter 1997, p. 5.
  3. ↑ Showalter 1997, p. 4.
  4. ↑ Showalter 1997, p. 6.
  5. ↑ Showalter 1997, p. 7.
  6. ↑ Showalter 1997, p. 8.
  7. 1 2 Showalter 1997, p. 9.
  8. ↑ Murray.

Works cited

External links

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