Susan Catherine Waters
Young Boy with a Pocket-Knife
Young Boy with a Pocket-Knife
I.
According to Professor Woody Caan, experience of bullying or victimisation at an early age is the root cause of knife and gun crime. In other words, many teens carry weapons for self-protection; not because they want to feel powerful and intimidate others, or are inherently attracted to a criminal lifestyle.
Thus, the best way to prevent stabbings and shootings by angry, but often frightened youths, says the professor, is to invest in effective anti-bullying policies and cultures that do not breed hate and insecurity within primary schools. Make children of six and seven feel loved and safe in their environments and they'll not feel the need to arm themselves as adolescents.
II.
Such liberal idealism seems a little naive to me. However, the idea that bullying results in a desire to arm oneself and perhaps seek revenge upon thugs who think it funny to threaten and humilate others whom they deem to be weaker or more vulnerable, finds support in the following scene involving a 13-year-old Paul Morel (the protagonist of D. H. Lawrence's novel Sons and Lovers).
Thus, the best way to prevent stabbings and shootings by angry, but often frightened youths, says the professor, is to invest in effective anti-bullying policies and cultures that do not breed hate and insecurity within primary schools. Make children of six and seven feel loved and safe in their environments and they'll not feel the need to arm themselves as adolescents.
II.
Such liberal idealism seems a little naive to me. However, the idea that bullying results in a desire to arm oneself and perhaps seek revenge upon thugs who think it funny to threaten and humilate others whom they deem to be weaker or more vulnerable, finds support in the following scene involving a 13-year-old Paul Morel (the protagonist of D. H. Lawrence's novel Sons and Lovers).
Paul has a passion for foreign languages and literature. But he doesn't like sports and refuses to compete in anything: "'I don't care whether I'm first or last. I don't care whether [everybody] does things better than me. What does it matter?'"
As Lawrence notes, this "modern and decadent contempt for action separated him from the mass of boys" and made him a prime target for bullying. Paul had a few friends, but the rest "regarded him coldly, with hostility, or contempt", thinking him aloof and somewhat effeminate, with his fancy ways and fancy clothes.
In an astonishing passage, that betrays the fact that, although exceedingly gentle, Paul is full of the molten hot potential for murderous violence, Lawrence writes:
In an astonishing passage, that betrays the fact that, although exceedingly gentle, Paul is full of the molten hot potential for murderous violence, Lawrence writes:
"Once, the bully faction, which he scorned, avoiding them [...] were set upon him because of the respect or consideration shown him by one of the teachers. They attacked him first with the sleering, coarse abuse of a gang in cry. He made no answer, merely looked away. Meanwhile his heart was boiling with hate. Then they took offence at the bow of black ribbon his mother tied him for a tie. The biggest bully tore it off. Another ripped his collar.
Paul did not move, only stiffen his back against the tugs on his clothing. He did not speak, nor moved a muscle of his face, only his eye like a mad thing's flashed from neck to neck of the bullies.
'If,' he said over and over again in his heart, 'If I had a knife, I would stick it there, and there, and there,' glancing his eye from throat to throat, looking always at the big vein. 'If I had a knife, if I had a knife -'
'If,' he said over and over again in his heart, 'If I had a knife, I would stick it there, and there, and there,' glancing his eye from throat to throat, looking always at the big vein. 'If I had a knife, if I had a knife -'
Then, as he imagined the difficulty of pulling a knife out to strike the next blow, the delay thereof, he changed his glance, looked intensely between the eyebrows of the lads, whose faces he saw not.
'If I had a revolver - there, there, there,' he counted in a flash, 'with five chambers, I would blow their brains out, one after the other.'
'If I had a revolver - there, there, there,' he counted in a flash, 'with five chambers, I would blow their brains out, one after the other.'
He chose the spot, felt his fingers stiffen to the trigger.
'Though,' he said to himself, 'I'd rather have the knife, to strike, to strike in their necks.'"
What this tells us, amongst other things, is that the will to violence and urge to kill is nothing new in teenage boys and that if pushed too far too often - or called upon to protect their friends or family members - even the meekest or most docile of creatures will retaliate or seek revenge:
The smallest worm will turn being trodden on,
And doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.
'Though,' he said to himself, 'I'd rather have the knife, to strike, to strike in their necks.'"
What this tells us, amongst other things, is that the will to violence and urge to kill is nothing new in teenage boys and that if pushed too far too often - or called upon to protect their friends or family members - even the meekest or most docile of creatures will retaliate or seek revenge:
The smallest worm will turn being trodden on,
And doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.
See:
D. H. Lawrence, Paul Morel, ed. Helen Baron, (Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 55.
This early draft of Sons and Lovers is quite different from the final version of the novel published in 1913. There's more humour, but also more violence and nervous energy. It also contains episodes - like the one here, based on Lawrence's own childhood experience - that were eventually discarded.
Woody Caan (Professorial Fellow, Royal Society for Public Health), writing in a letter on knife crime published in The Guardian (18 Jan 2018): click here to read online.
Note: the lines at the end are - of course - from Shakespeare's Henry VI, Pt. 3 (Act II, Scene 2).
This early draft of Sons and Lovers is quite different from the final version of the novel published in 1913. There's more humour, but also more violence and nervous energy. It also contains episodes - like the one here, based on Lawrence's own childhood experience - that were eventually discarded.
Woody Caan (Professorial Fellow, Royal Society for Public Health), writing in a letter on knife crime published in The Guardian (18 Jan 2018): click here to read online.
Note: the lines at the end are - of course - from Shakespeare's Henry VI, Pt. 3 (Act II, Scene 2).
