Clint Eastwood and Issues of American Masculinity

5 Parables of Revenge and Masculinity in Mystic River

5 Parables of Revenge and Masculinity in Mystic River Roger Berkowitz and Drucilla Cornell In this essay, we read Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River1 as an insightful exploration of the seductions and dangers of revenge and the relation of vengeance to violence and masculinity. What revenge offers in response to trauma and loss is the fantasy of control. The ‘‘value of vindictiveness ,’’ to use Karen Horney’s suggestive phrase, is that revenge offers a ‘‘safety-valve’’ that protects a victim against the self-destructive impulses that accompany the act of being injured or insulted.2 Confronted by a traumatic injury, all people feel a ‘‘natural propensity’’ to hit back that, according to Horney, has its reason in the impulse to defend one’s ideal image of oneself; failure to respond to an injury threatens to show the injured party as either physically or psychologically incapable, which can lead to feelings of self-hatred so extreme that they ‘‘constitute a real danger for the individual.’’3 By externalizing harm as a result not of one’s own weakness but of another’s wrong, the avenging victim both restores his injured pride and steels himself from self-blame and selfdestruction . Beyond the value of vengeance itself, Horney’s article ‘‘The Value of Vindictiveness’’ identifies two alternatives to revenge: neurosis and ‘‘becoming more human.’’ Neurotic capitulation, either from physical or moral incapacity to act upon vengeful impulses, leads the traumatized The authors thank Jenny Lyn Bader, Sara Murphy, and two anonymous reviewers for reading and providing helpful comments on earlier drafts of this essay. This chapter originally appeared in Law, Culture and the Humanities 1 (2005), pp. 316–32. 121 122 Revenge and Masculinity in Mystic River victim to see himself ‘‘as a helpless jellyfish, a prey to anybody who chooses to step on him and a prey also to his own self-contempt.’’ Becoming human, on the other hand, means abandoning his idealized vision of his own grandeur; by disowning his prideful belief in his uniqueness and his masterful control, the human victim becomes an ‘‘ordinary human being like everybody,’’ and thus ‘‘part of the swarming mass of humanity he so despises.’’ The goal of Horney’s therapeutic response to vindictiveness is to reverse the valuation of prideful vindication so that ‘‘‘becoming human’ will feel like the most desirable goal toward which to strive.’’4 Horney’s tripartite understanding of the vindictive responses to traumatic injury offers a helpful frame within which to view Mystic River (2003). In Mystic River, three men are confronted with proof of their powerlessness; unable to prevent an injury to themselves or their loved ones, the men respond in different ways. Their choices, human in every way, are parables for three fundamental human responses to trauma. Dave Boyle (Tim Robbins) is so overcome by trauma that he can only articulate a mere stuttering of his loss in speeches that remain incomprehensible even to those closest to him. Jimmy Markum (Sean Penn), on the other hand, refuses to admit his vulnerability to trauma. In striving to overcome the forces buffeting him and in powerfully seeking to control his life, Jimmy rebels against the finite and limited nature of his humanity. His effort to avenge his daughter’s murder is a desperate struggle to understand and thereby to master a universe gone mad. Sean Devine (Kevin Bacon) neither succumbs to his traumatic experience of his wife’s leaving him nor, however, does he deny her power over him. Rather, Sean comes gradually to humbly accept the limitation on his power and control that marks the humanity of his masculinity. Together, these three responses to trauma—collapse, rebellion through vengeance, and upright acceptance of finitude—comprise the structuring triad of Mystic River. Whereas Dave is consumed by his neurotic response to trauma, Jimmy and Sean present two meaningful responses to the impulse to respond to injury with revenge. Jimmy’s act of vengeance is driven by an idealized fantasy of superhuman power and control. Sean, however, comes to embrace the very limited nature of humanity that Jimmy rejects. Sean’s heroism, his decision to become more human, is a powerful counterweight to Jimmy’s more traditional masculine heroism, one that is located in the need to stand upright as a man who recognizes he is inevitably shaped by forces beyond his control. Revenge and Masculinity in Mystic River 123 Precisely because Mystic River leaves the con...