The Vagaries of Memory and the Spirit of Perverseness
This has always been one of my children’s favorite photos!
When I taught sophomore English, we did the novel The Lord of the Flies. I thought it was a strange choice because there are no girls in the book, which tended to diminish the interest level of half my class. But I had no trouble accepting the main premise of the book, that when the constraints of social decorum are removed, man will revert to every kind of evil behavior, and I had no trouble demonstrating the truth of that premise to my class. About halfway through the novel, I would announce that I was no longer the teacher. I would sit at the back of the classroom, but the rest of the reading and teaching of the novel would be left entirely to the students themselves. We would take the test in four days. On your mark, get set, go.
By the end of the third day, total chaos would reign in my classroom (never failed). I’d step in and compare and contrast the class’s behavior with that of the boys on the island. Nice little thematic lesson, gift-wrapped.
One of the main tenets of Christian theology is that man is fallen, that he is inclined toward evil, and that, left to his own devices, he will inevitably gravitate in that direction. This inclination often manifests itself randomly, without regard for rational thought or justice. Edgar Allan Poe calls it the Spirit of Perverseness in his short story The Black Cat.
I learned, or thought I learned, of this human condition in my childhood. There was a boy on our block that nobody liked. Our neighborhood Piggy. One late summer night our gang snuck out, raided another neighbor’s vegetable garden, and pelted the side of Piggy’s house with ripe tomatoes. We took off running when the house lights went on. The next day Piggy’s mom took up a neighborhood inquiry; when questioned by our mother my brother confessed to our participation, and we (but none of the rest of the gang) spent an afternoon washing the side of Piggy’s house.
But it gets worse. Piggy’s imagined crimes against his peer group became more serious, and a plan for retribution was hatched. On another midnight raid, we snuck into Piggy’s backyard, released his pet duck from its cage, and hung it. I was the youngest boy in the group, so I had no hand in the deed, but I remember watching in horror and fascination.
As an afterthought: Both of these incidents are so hazy in my own recollection that I called my brother to verify their authenticity. He could not recall the tomatoes but does not doubt that such a thing might have happened. But he is unequivocally certain that there was no lynching. Not ever, at least, not in his presence. So where did I get this stuff? From a dream? A flight of fancy? I don’t know. I do not, however, doubt the fall of man.
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