Something that's not immediately obvious about Old Nick from Jack and Ma's portrayals of him is that he clearly doesn't glorify or love violence against his captives. He has the capacity to be brutally violent when provoked by Ma trying to escape, as he absolutely cannot afford to let her get out, and we hear about several of those times, but those are only a few times, and there's nothing like that most days Ma is imprisoned. He also never tries to hurt Jack, more showing complete disregard for him with a small bit of interest once in a while (the Jeep is one example).
It's this general lack of violence and anger that made Old Nick so unsettling to me at first. Knowing the premise of the book, I imagined that someone that would set up a prison like this would be completely brutal, and his interactions with Ma would be violent. However, hearing them talk through Jack's narration, their conversations were very disturbingly ordinary. They have normal talks about food, clothes, and other things, and Old Nick even makes a couple sarcastic remarks about how Ma's better off than him because he brings things for them. Going just by their general dynamics in conversation in the early book, you would guess that Ma and Old Nick are an somewhat unhappy couple trapped in a loveless marriage, not a kidnapping rapist and his victim.
This domestic relationship and how Old Nick was playing the role of a husband was brought up in class today, and that really made it clear to me that what Old Nick wanted from all of this was a relationship. He was unsuccessful in doing this normally for whatever reasons, and so he kidnapped Ma to try and create one for himself. It's also not a completely dominant/submissive relationship that he was, but an equal one. He could easily just walk in each night, rape Ma, and leave, but instead he tries to engage in normal conversation with her, and keeps Jack and Ma much more well-supplied with food and clothes than we would expect. Even his rapes don't seem especially brutal, and Ma even asks him to "come to bed" a couple times when she's tired of him questioning about Jack. He seems to really care about Ma, but in a very twisted way, and wants them to have an equal relationship. This is evidenced by the way that she even seems to have some power over him. He only attacks her physically when she initiates it trying to escape, and he allows her to attack him verbally. When she's screaming at him to bury Jack far away, he even seems very timid and scared of her, which does not fit at all with his role in the imprisonment of Ma, but more with his imagined role of her partner. He's a horrible character with a twisted motivation, but maybe one that we can partially understand.
I personally don't see Old Nick even remotely as sympathetic character. I certainly don't think we're intended to either, as that would seriously dampen the heroism of Jack and Ma. He has no reason to be violent, so he isn't. Goodness is not simply the absence of some evil. Their "normal talks" are always brutal and one-sided, and Ma asks Nick to "come to bed" not out of affection but rather out of fear for Jack. In the chapter Dying, she goes so far as to risk both their lives for a slim chance of escaping from him. I think your argument for Old Nick being a more nuanced character than he appears is a very interesting one, but to me, he seems as one-dimensional as a character can get.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I completely agree that Old Nick is not a sympathetic character, I wasn't trying to make it seem like he was, sorry if it came off a different way. He's not a "good" character in any way, but he is a lot less violent and brutal than many other people who imprison others, and doesn't seem to enjoy the violence at all, and is in fact happier when he and Ma have polite conversation. And finally, I agree that Old Nick is still sort of a one-dimensional character in the story, I was just trying to point out that that one dimension is perhaps something different than people might think/expect.
DeleteOld Nick is disgusting. I have been curious though as to what his backstory is and what could have made him feel imprisoning someone was the only way he could have a relationship. I don't quite buy your point that he wants an equal relationship with Ma because what they have is pretty dominant/submissive in my opinion, since Nick can take away their food and water and heating whenever he wants if Ma does anything wrong. One scene that did stand out to me with Old Nick was during the Great Escape when Ma is yelling at him, and I was really surprised that Nick didn't check the body or break his promises as soon as he got outside Room. Instead he seemed a little sobered by Jack's death and he seemed to respect Ma's emotion. I think it's because there was another child before Jack, who died, and Old Nick actually feels bad for Ma that she's lost thse two. I almost feel like he's understanding people for once, until I realize what Ma's saying implies that he buried the first child in the backyard and I just can't believe how messed up he must be to bury children in order to keep a prisoner.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that scene is one of the most memorable to me so far, his obedience of Ma was really surprising to me. The fact that he thinks he's killed two children through negligence has to weight extremely heavy on him, no matter how messed up he is, and I think that it would definitely sober him and make him regret what he's done, at least a bit. No matter what his regrets though, even after the death of the first child he couldn't afford to make things right and release Ma, as he would be jailed probably for life after she told her story.
DeleteAlso, I think that the fact that Nick can take away supplies and power from Ma and Jack, as well as the overall imprisonment, do reflect a very dominant/submissive relationship. However, while their situation is one which Old Nick dominates, I feel like Nick wants a more equal relationship in his interactions and talks with Ma. When actually speaking to her, he seems to want to have his illusion of a normal relationship, and is much happier when she plays into this. In his conversations with Ma he seems generally polite, with a few exceptions, it's only after the fact that he punishes Ma and Jack, showing his dominance.
Yeah I think Old Nick was written as a "realistic" villain if that makes sense. He's evil in believable ways, but not excessively so, so as not to take away from the seriousness of the plot. I also used to think that he could become an interesting character, but I think this explanation makes a lot more sense. No one would be evil if they were getting what they wanted all the time; not always being abusive isn't a redeeming trait.
DeleteThe dynamic between Nick and Ma, as seen through Jack's eyes, does resemble something like a distortion of a more typical (bad) marriage, with the husband acting all put-upon, complaining about stuff the wife wants him to do around the house, saying she doesn't understand what it means to work all day, while she puts on a "sweet" voice and tried to maneuver him to get what she wants. It's an abusive relationship, even in these more "normal" manifestations, exacerbated exponentially by the fact of him kidnapping and raping her.
ReplyDeleteWe can see this as part of Ma's "heroic" efforts to survive this ordeal. She's clearly learned that she needs to play along with a certain twisted kind of domestic fiction in her dealings with Nick, to play a role in his twisted fantasy, and we can see her doing this stuff largely for Jack's benefit. He gives her a reason to live, and to endure the torment and abuse, and she's learned that Jack's well-being is more ensured if she placates Nick with the fiction of her as a kind of "wife."