Peter Grimes

Peter Grimes

1. Implication that a crime has been committed

   • Isolation from society
   • Descending into madness
   • Narrative
     • Treatment of his father
       • "But stood the stubborn boy ....then added his abuse: His father's love he scorn'd, his power defied"
       • "But being drunk, wept sorely when [his father] died"
       • he thought "much of his conduct and felt the shame"
     • Murders
     • "Thus by himself compell'd to live each day"
   • Minor transgressions against the law
     • "He fish'd by water, and he filch'd by land"

2. Murder and violence

   • Violent imagery
     • Exaggeration
       • "tugg'd fiercely [a farm load] from the stack"
     • "He wish'd for one...to....bear the blow of his outrageous hand"
     • "Awake tormented, - soon aroused from sleep,- Struck if he wept, and yet compell'd to weep, The trembling boy dropp'd down and strove to pray"
     • "And his fate?- one night it chanced he fell From the boat's mast and perish'd in her well. Where fish were living kept, and where the boy (so reason'd men) could not himself destroy"
     • "...the tall mud-banks...which on each side rose swelling, and below the dark warm flood ran silently and slow."
     • "For the warm shore, within the shallows play; Where gaping mussels."

3. The criminal psyche

   • Drunk
     • "His liquor fail'd, and Peter's wrath arose, No more is known- the rest we must suppose."
   • Anger
     • Death of his mother
       • "when the father in his Bible read, he in contempt and anger left the shed"
     • "boiling blood"
     • "He growl'd an oath, and in an angry tone cursed the whole place and wish'd to be alone"
     • "Cold nervous trembles shook his sturdy frame"
   • Psychopathic
     • Compulsion to steal
       • "And as these wrongs to greater numbers rose, the more he look'd on all men as his foes"
       • "He built a mud-wall'd hovel, where he kept his various wealth, and there he often slept"
     • "He gave th' account; profess'd the lad he loved, And kept his brazen features all unmoved."
     • "But new to danger on the angry sea, He clung affrighten'd to his master's knee"
   • Power
     • "But no success could please his cruel soul, He wish'd for one to trouble and control"
     • "The savage master, grinn'd in horrid glee: He'd now the power he ever loved to show, A feeling being subject to his blow."

4. Victims

   • The father
     • "quiet Peter"
       • simple and pleasant man
       • The reader = fond of him
     • Religious figure
       • "made fishing his employ"
         • simple life = humble
         • working class
         • Religious connotations
           • Connotations of one of the disciples: Simon who, once a fisherman, was reformed by Jesus, was baptised under the name 'Peter' and become one of his disciples
       • Fifth commandment: 'Honour thy mother and father'
         • "once had dealt the sacrilegious blow on his bare head, and laid his parent low"
       • Father: "thou wilt remember me"
         • Reminiscent of the last supper: in memory of me
   • "Sought for prey on shore" [to steal from]
   • "He'll serve the better if he's stroked and fed."
   • "Pinn'd, beaten, cold, pinch'd, threaten'd and abused"
   • "Compell'd by fear to lie, by need to steal, His bed uneasy and unbless'd his meal"
   • "Strange that a frame so weak could bear so long"
   • "And thought stern Peter, with a cruel hand... yet he consider'd what he'd lately felt, And his vile blows with selfish pity dealt."
   • "Compell'd by fear to lie, by need to steal, His bed uneasy and unbless'd his meal

5. Punishment/remorse

   • Lack of typical 'detective hero'
   • "Free thou art now!- again shouldst thou appear, Thou'lt find thy sentence, like thy soul, severe"
   • "Oppress'd the soul with misery, gried, and fear."
   • "Waked by his views of horrors in the night...Horrors that demons might be proud to raise: And though he felt foresaken, grieved at heart."

6. Settings

7. Social commentary

   • "Peter had heard there were in London then...workhouse-clearing men, who, undistrub'd by feelings just or kind, would parish-boys needy tradesmen bind"
   • "Some few in town observed in Peter's trap a boy, with jacket blue and woollen cap; But none inquired how Peter used the rope, Or what the bruise that made the stripling stoop; None could the ridges on his back behold, None sought his shiv'ring in the winter's cold; None put the question- "Peter, dost thou give the boy his food?..."
   • "and some, on hearing cries, said calmly, "Grimes is at his exercise"
   • "Another boy with equal ease was found, The money granted, and the vicitim bound"
   • "Peter pass'd untroubled and unmoved"
   • "These, idly curious, with their glasses spied."
   • "Our gentle females, ever prompt to feel, Percieved compasion on their anger steal; His crimes they could not from their memories blot, But they were grieved, and trembled at his lot."

8. Restoration of order

9. PERSPECTIVE LENS

   • Marxism
   • Narrative theory
   • Value and the canon

10. Morality

    • "Thou kill'dst not [your mother]- heav'n spares the double-crime"
    • "Now lived the youth in freedom, but debarr'd"
    • "He laugh'd at law"
    • he thought "much of his conduct and felt the shame"
    • "Much they suspected, but they little proved And Peter pass'd untroubled and unmoved."
    • ""What said the jury?"- they were long in doubt, But sturdy Peter faced the matter out"
    • ""Keep fast your hatchway when you've boys who climb." This it the conscience, and he colour'd more Than for the closest questions put before."
    • "Yet he consider'd what he'd lately felt, And his vile blows with selfish pity delt."