Villains of Stories
Introduction
Villains are referred to as individuals in stories, plays, or movies that display evil actions in the literary work plot, which are very significant to the literary work’s plot. In many instances, these characters are referred to as antagonists who oppose the main characters referred to as protagonists. This being the case, the villains in question in this instance are those from two short stories, “Voir Dire” and “Doing Time in 13th Chair”. The first story (“Voir Dire”) depicts a state of affairs where a public defender named Hank Low struggles with his legal representation of and an individual named Chee Seng Lam, the villain in the story, who was a drug addict doing cocaine and was prosecuted for allegedly battering the infant son (Simon) to his girlfriend (Ruby) to death. Hank’s apprehension over the case and his profession as a public defender is aggravated by the pregnancy of his girlfriend (Molly) as he feels he is not doing right by both of them through his profession. Despite overwhelming evidence in support of the villain, he was found guilty and jailed for eleven years. On the other hand, the story “Doing Time in 13th Chair,” narrated on the first account by a character who acted as a substitute juror talks of the story of a character Bennie who was being prosecuted in court on the charges of dealing drugs to a police informant occasionally referred to as a 190. The character Bennie in the story portrays Bennie’s role, and the whole story revolves around a five-day court case where the villain was found guilty and jailed based on two accounts, which meant a prison sentence of over fifty years. On this basis, this paper will discuss how the readers are meant to feel sympathy for villains of stories based on the story of two villains Chee Seng Lam and Bennie in the texts “Voir Dire” and “Doing Time in 13th Chair”.
The character Chee Seng Lam was used to illustrate that readers are meant to feel sympathy for villains of stories. Through the text “Voir Dire,” it is depicted that Lam allegedly whipped a three-year-old child to death and had over twenty prior arrests, which included aggravated assault, blackmails, and theft. All this points to a very evil character and is loathed by society, which is the perfect portrayal of a villain. However, despite this, the author of the story spends a big part of the text trying to explain that the villain was under the influence of drugs, which made him commit the evil act. This author’s attempt aims to make the readers sympathize with the villain and understand his reasons for engaging in this vile act. Since the story is based on a court case, it revolves around individuals coming into the court and defending the villain based on their testimonies, including his friends and the medical examiner who examined the deceased infant’s body. This being the case, evidence was presented that the villain had mental episodes that were caused by using drugs, including crack. The Medical examiner claimed that “In my opinion, he did not know that it was Simon he was beating” (Lee, 2001). These mental episodes made him have visions whereby at times, he was seen scratching his skin so hard that it peeled off because of his thought that snakes were crawling all over him. His lawyer, a public defendant, fought for him in court along this line, whereby he murdered the infant child because his hallucinations told him that he was getting rid of snakes while instead, he was battering the infant child. This storyline aims to make the readers sympathize with the villain by convincing them that despite the brutality of the act that he committed, he did so under the influence of drugs and not his right state of mind. This tends to make the readers view the villain as an individual in need of rehabilitation instead of prison time, and that is precisely what the author of the text was aiming at while composing the story (Lee, 2001).
In comparison, the character Bennie was also used to illustrate that readers are meant to feel sympathy for villains of stories. Through the text “Doing Time in 13th Chair,” it is depicted that the villain Bennie sold drugs, had a previous record of two counts of shoplifting and burglary, and was arraigned in court for “interrupting the peace and dignity of the great state of Indiana” (Sanders, 2005). All these aspects also point out to the primary characters of a villain. However, despite this, the author also worked very hard to ensure that the readers of the text sympathized with the villain Bennie’s position. This was done through the character himself explaining his situation in court that led to the position that he was currently: in a courthouse. Therefore, the character explains to the judge that his troubles began when he was assigned on a military mission to Vietnam during the 60s as a cook. After cooking for some time, the American soldiers were overwhelmed, and they needed to use all the help they could get, and they recruited him as one of the soldiers, yet he had no training. In his role as a soldier, he had to do terrible things like killing and maiming individuals to survive. To relieve himself of such terrors, he started doing drugs like marijuana and opium to stay ‘sane.’ After the war ended, he came back home to find that the world had moved on without him with his fiancé married off to another man. This made him fall deeper into drugs, and as a result, he also started to sell them as a means of survival as he could not acquire any jobs. All these explanations by the author aimed to make the readers sympathize with the villain and get to see that his background was what led him to the current predicament that he was in. The villain’s wife Rebecca was also used to make the readers sympathize with the villain through displaying his “humane” nature, where he took care of her kids and struggled to bring meals to the table for his family (Sanders, 2005).
The significance of being able to relate to a villain is that they evoke empathy, generating a connection between the villain and the readers. To begin with, villains can stimulate pity from readers. This comes in such a way that when the readers discover what happened to the villains to make them the way they now are, they tend to have feelings of supportiveness and sympathy towards them. In the text “Doing Time in 13th Chair,” the villain Bennie is arraigned in court because of dealing drugs (Sanders, 2005). However, after the readers discover that this state of affairs was brought about by the hardships that he had to go through while away in the war in Vietnam that made him turn to drugs for support, they cannot help but feel supportive towards the character. Relating to a villain also brings about feelings of compassion whereby the readers, at times, have the feeling of wanting the villains to be nice in the story. In the text, “Voir Dire,” the villain Chee Seng Lam is seen to be quite a gangster by openly criticizing his lawyer while telling him that “the child was better off dead” instead of being in the hands of a drug addict and prostitute for a mom (Lee, 2001). This makes the readers wish the character would be a little bit nicer than he is.
In conclusion, based on the texts “Voir Dire” and “Doing Time in 13th Chair,” the readers are meant to feel sympathy for stories’ villains. This is illustrated through the comparison of two villains from the two stories: Chee Seng Lam and Bennie. Besides, being able to relate to a villain evokes empathy, generating a connection between the villain and the readers.