Injustice

injustice--a character's sense of having been dealt with unfairly, a rip or tear in the fabric of social accord; a person or system inflicting on another individual or group of individuals a behavior or treatment extending beyond civility; encroaching on another person's or group's defined territory; any thoughtless or bullying oppression or harassment.

Injustice may be real or imagined. The actual victim may not feel the unjustified invasion but a close friend or family member, observing the circumstances, might see the occasion and then attempt to urge the actual victim into recognition of the injustice. What a splendid motivational force for fiction. Injustice may breed resentment, which in its turn motivates irony, which gives way to sarcasm, which becomes the catalyst for revenge. Injustice is a prized motivation because it so frequently begets dramatic action, which is, of course, the life's blood of story.

One of the more notable victims of injustice was Edmond Dantes of The Count of Monte Cristo fame. In Dumas's epic tale, Dantes becomes the victim of a conspiratorial web of injustice to the point of considering suicide in his helpless despair. Through a dramatic shift of power (see), Dantes is able to embark on a pattern of revenge which, once exacted, allows him the luxury of getting on with his life.

Another victim of injustice, the near-iconic Montresor of "A Cask of Amontillado," has suffered injuries (never specifically detailed but assumed to be countless humiliations) in the past but has now been insulted by Fortunato(also not detailed but through implication presented as sufficient to merit revenge). The story ends with Montressor having sufficiently played upon Montressor's overweening pride to the point of luring him into a fatal trap, during the course of which Montressor is given cause to cite his family's motto, “Nemo me impune lacessit,” (No one insults me with impunity)which is a tell of the outcome. Montressor's ultimate revenge for the injustice suffered appears to satisfy him, but since the story is narrated in first-person, it is possible to read it with the interpretation that this is merely one of many retellings of the story, that Montressor has literally been dining out on the tale for some years and that in doing so, he has become as overweening in his pride as he felt Fortunato to be in his.

Fiction abounds with characters setting forth to undo injustices. Happily, there is room for more.

Victim of Fictional Circumstances

victim--a character who is the recipient of a real or imagined injustice; an individual affected adversely; one whose agenda, health, plans, and general sense of well being is diverted or destroyed by an outside force.

Victims have real estate with a view on the literary landscape, seemingly standing in line to be first to claim the role. A victim, by definition has experienced (or believes he has experienced) some force of event that has derailed his aspirations and his hoped for rewards, allowing him in some cases to stop all developmental motion, take on the mantle of the martyr, and luxuriate in the misfortune. Other victims of birth or circumstance or both get up, brush off the dust, then get back to the business at hand.

He or she who proclaims victimhood the loudest is likely suspect of malingering or playing on sympathy. Neither is attractive. A character is a victim as a consequence of having ventured something, taken a risk, hoped a hope. Such activity is not lost on the reader, who is now prepared to invest hard earned empathy in such a character, thus whatever the character who has suffered reversals does next has a marked influence on the reader.

There is a delicate balance to accepting one's fate; should one go meekly or with a fight? Should one wail loudly after reversal (such as, say, Silas Marner, when his miserly stash was stolen), or be the stoic? It helps to know the character in some detail before inflicting the status of victim on him; his response may well provide the exit strategy for the story. Does a setback enhance the character's forward inertia or diminish it?

A character who wishes to avenge victim status (See The Count of Monte Cristo, see also The Mayor of Casterbridge) is a good candidate for reader sympathy. Even Ahab, setting forth the hunt down the whale, though extreme, nevertheless excites our understanding and sympathy, even our grudging respect. A character who welcomes victim status as an excuse for avoiding future venture is an individual who will not have many rooters among the readership.

Hint: To stir up the potential of mischief for the sake of creating new stories, consider your take on Herman Melville's eponymous Bartleby, "pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn," then consider his inner core. Consider how you would portray him if you were an actor, and how you would move him forth as a character you had created. Is Bartleby a victim?