The degrees of violence presented in both works can be categorised into three sections, consisting of: oral aggression, implied violence and physical violence, with death as a direct result of external force.
Compare and contrast the depiction of violence in The Driver’s Seat and The History of Mary
Prince.
The depiction of violence in the autobiographical slave narrative of Mary Prince naturally
lends itself as an ideal text to compare, and contrast the levels of aggression that occur in
Muriel Spark’s novella The Driver’s Seat. The degrees of violence presented in both works
can be categorised into three sections, consisting of: oral aggression, implied violence and
physical violence, with death as a direct result of external force.
Oral aggression occurs frequently throughout Mary Prince’s narrative, as she relates
the cruel and persistent verbal abuse her owners inflict at the slightest provocation. Her first
account of verbal punishment is when she notifies her mistress Mrs. I- of an already cracked
jar that ‘has come in two’ due to her handling (p. 16).1 Consequently Capt. I- returns and
abuses her ‘with every ill name he could think of’, which she subsequently insists are ‘too,
too bad to speak in England’ (p. 58). Prince is relentlessly yelled at, sworn at and chastised by
Mr. D-, once for being too slow and not wheeling the barrow fast enough through the sand,
owing to the aggravated boils on her feet, impairing her capability to move satisfactorily (p.
63). After a quarrel with Capt. D-, Prince agrees to leave his household willingly, if he should
only let her purchase her own freedom. This ‘enraged him more than all the rest’ and
provoked an explosive response where he swears at her ‘dreadfully’ (p. 78).
In contrast, whereas Prince is a victim of verbal belligerence, Lise in The Driver’s
Seat acts as the perpetrator, projecting her aggression orally onto others. Lise’s verbal
aggression is similar in principle to that of Capt. D- and the other slave owners, because it
acts as means of exerting her authority over other people. For example, Lise ‘shrieks’ at a
1
Mary Prince, The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave, Related by Herself (London: Pandora Press,
1987), p.58. All subsequent quotations will be referenced with a page number in parentheses immediately
following the quote.
1
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