Where Is A Bad Guy When You Really Need One?

Antagonists and Master Criminals

- J. Madison Davis

What is crime fiction about? One glib answer is the struggle between good and evil. As light is defined by darkness, there is no hero without the counterpush of an opposing character. The Greeks left us the terms “protagonist” and “antagonist” from their word for “actor” (agon), with the “protagonist” being the primary actor, and the “antagonist” being the opposing. In most stories, the protagonist is “good” in the sense that Aristotle describes in his Poetics, not saintly or morally pure— Aristotle was not a Christian—but making choices the audience would interpret as the proper ones. Consider the brilliant classic “A Jury of Her Peers,” by Susan Glaspell. A group of women conceal the fact that their friend, abused by her husband, murdered him. By the time we reach the story’s conclusion, we generally agree with their decision and have come to view the sheriff as an antagonist. The women are not doing “good,” in the conventional sense, but the sheriff is certainly not “evil.” His choices, as a man and a representative of the law, show us his blindness to the emotional cruelties inflicted on the wife for many years. Her suffering justifies the difficult choice to remain silent, and readers, with perhaps some reticence, agree.