Seven Evil Uncles of Fiction

The Evil Uncle is a well-established and familiar form in fiction, and has been since – well, let’s take a look, shall we?

The classickest of evil uncles, to my mind, is Hamlet’s Uncle Claudius, who kills his brother (Hamlet Senior), steals his brother’s wife (in that order) and usurps the throne which was rightfully Hamlet Senior’s and is now rightfully Hamlet Junior’s. Confronted with this heaping pile of villainy, he feels a modicum of remorse (see Act III, Scene iii) – but not enough to actually try to put things right to the extent that he still can.

Claudius_at_Prayer_Hamlet_3-3_Delacroix_1844Slightly younger than Uncle Claudius is Uncle Richard, aka the Duke of Gloucester. (Only slightly younger – c. 1592 as opposed to c.1599-1602. Not 1485 – I am putting him in the fictional category as Shakespeare’s version doesn’t adhere all that closely to historical fact. Probably because he was writing under the rule of the grand-daughter of the man who killed (and replaced) Richard.) Shakespeare’s Richard orphans one niece and nephew, marries off the former to a nobody and imprisons the latter, has two other nephews murdered, and tries to marry another niece. That is a bad uncle.

Zipping on two or so centuries, to the late 1830s, we come to Kate and Nicholas Nickleby’s Uncle Ralph, a cold-hearted Scrooge of a man who uses his niece as bait for objectionable men and tries to ruin his nephew. He veers from the classic mould in not actually killing his brother (possibly because his brother doesn’t have a throne), but he doesn’t give a damn that he’s dead, either.

Nicholas Nickleby, (1875?)
C.S. Lewis furnished the world with two fine examples of the Evil Uncle genus. First (in 1951), Prince Caspian’s Uncle Miraz, who returns to the purity of the classics by killing his brother and pinching his crown – as well as planning to kill the rightful heir. Unlike Claudius, however, he does not pinch his brother’s widow, being already married to the hilariously named Prunaprismia.

Lewis’ second example is the magician who has the nephew in The Magician’s Nephew (1955) – Digory’s Uncle Andrew. A fool, perhaps, but an ambitious, meddling and arrogant fool, which to my mind qualifies him for the title of an Evil Uncle.

“Men like me, who possess hidden wisdom, are freed from common rules just as we are cut off from common pleasures. Ours, my boy, is a high and lonely destiny.”
As he said this he sighed and looked so grave and noble and mysterious that for a second Digory really thought he was saying something rather fine. But then he remembered the ugly look he had seen on his Uncle’s face… and all at once he saw through Uncle Andrew’s grand words. “All it means,” he thought to himself, “is that he thinks he can do anything he likes to get anything he wants.”

Carl Spitzweg 015
So far the list of Evil Uncles seems to be dominated by the fruitful minds of the male of the species: two of Shakespeare’s, two of Lewis’, and one of Dickens’. But now, at last, we come to an Evil Uncle from the mind of a woman.

The woman in question is Ellis Peters, creator of Brother Cadfael, and also of Iveta de Massard’s Evil Uncle Sir Godfrid Picard (from The Leper of Saint Giles, 1981). He may be further from the murdering, throne-stealing Claudian mould than many of the above, but he’s still prepared to force his niece to marry a rather nasty man who is older than her father, purely for his own financial gain. And to blackmail her into pretending to like it by threatening the life of a young man she cares for. In short, a rotter.

The final Evil Uncle of the list is due to make his appearance in January 2018. Also from the mind of a woman (mine, in fact), he follows the classic mould in killing his brother to seize the throne, and trying to kill the rightful heir as well. (Why mess with a winning combination?)

man-1519667_640It is perhaps worth noting that of the first six Evil Uncles on the list (spoilers!), five are dead by the time the tale is wound up. I decided to be boldly different, and as a result, the death of Princess Lily’s Evil Uncle Phelan is announced before Chapter One is wound up. But of course, that’s not the whole story…

What fictional Evil Uncles have I missed? Feel free to add entries to the list below!

Rx for Readers

Are your humours out of balance? You could be cupped, or bled, or purged. You could consider emetics, or even dally with leeches. Or perhaps you could just read a book instead.

Myself, I always go for the book.

Karoly Ferenczy 22

I don’t know when I realized that I self-medicate with books. Possibly when I wrote this post, or possibly this one.
Or possibly when I read one of the new editions of P.G. Wodehouse and noted that his works were described as “cheaper than Prozac, and 100 per cent more effective.”

Here are a few of my favourite prescriptions.

Feeling blue? In a brown study? Life just drab and grey? Take a course of P.G. Wodehouse. Read anything he wrote: a novel, a preface, even the account of his experiences being interned by the Nazis. Uniformly hilarious.
Overdoses can cause symptoms similar to intoxication; possible side effects include aching stomach muscles and snorted drinks.

Original caption- A couple of hearty characters roar at a good joke Art.IWMARTLD135c

Are you jaded by the harried complexities of urban life, the rush, the pollution, the noise? Try the old classic Heidi, by Johanna Spyri. Warning: may cause uncontrollable urge to move to Switzerland.

Plenty of housework to do, but don’t fancy drudging it? Monica Dickens’ autobiographical caper One Pair of Hands should get you in the mood – or, for a more fictional twist, try the exploits of Lucy Eyelesbarrow in Agatha Christie’s 4:50 from Paddington.

Edouard John Mentha Lesendes Dienstmädchen in einer Bibliothek

Most of Agatha Christie’s works are ideal for when you are in need of something warm and comforting to curl up in. They’re not mindless junk, but neither are there nasty surprises. (Not unless you read Endless Night.) Plenty of unexpected twists, though – I’ve read them over and over again and I still sometimes miss whodunnit.

Also excellent for the early stages of recuperation are Patricia Wentworth’s Miss Silver novels. There is no-one I would rather have in my sick-room than this quietly knitting, Tennyson-quoting gentlewoman detective, ahem, private enquiry agent.

Edwardian lady writing (6908558900)

Are you oppressed? By life, by work, by circumstance? If, like the man trapped by the date tree which grew under him as he slept, you are unable to alter circumstances to your will; adapt your will to circumstances instead: try being heroically or nobly oppressed, for variety.
Nicholas Nickleby (by Monica’s great-granddaddy Charles) would be delighted to be of assistance; or Part One of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women may serve the turn instead.

Like Hamlet, do you find life “weary, stale, flat and unprofitable”? Try Terry Pratchett for some “interesting times.”

Edwin Booth as Hamlet lithograph

Does time weigh heavily on your hands? Do the days bore you by their prosaic banality? The ideal solution is J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic, The Lord of the Rings – the ultimate reason to “not speak slightingly of the three-volume novel,” as Miss Prism warns her charge.

What home remedies do you have on your bookshelf? I’d love to hear!

Whistle While You Work

…and wait for Disney’s copyright lawyers to come after you. Safer to sing a happy working song – actually, to be on the safe side, better to just work in silence.

The Grimm children doing the housework. 8d29103v

Scratch that! Working songs have been used as long as there have been work and songs, i.e. since before Mr Disney was born or thought of. Whether you’re a sailor, a farmer, or just a general labourer, work songs are there, as Wikipedia puts it, “to increase productivity while reducing feelings of boredom.” Hear hear. Or rather, sing, sing.

Of course, traditional work singing, like traditional work, was generally communal. You’ll Never Work Alone. (Might as well get Rodgers & Hammerstein: An Imagem Company on my back while I’m at it…) Unfortunately for us, most communal work these days is done in workplaces whose managements frown on their staff joining in traditional call-and-response songs. Can’t think why.

“The printer’s gone and jammed again,
Haven’t had a break since God knows when;”
“Pay cuts and paper cuts,
Another day at the office!”

“Fifteen years since I’ve had a raise,
Manager thinks he owns this place;”
“Pay cuts and paper cuts,
Another day at the office!”

'Sentimental Ballad' by Grant Wood, 1940

So most of your opportunities for work-singing, if you’re anything like me, are solitary: housework, and perhaps gardening if you’re not worried about the neighbours’ opinions.

You can, of course, sing along with recorded music – companies have made good money from packaging music as suitable for doing housework to – but this has its limitations. Housework often takes you out of the room, and vacuums etc can drown the music out. Unless you play it really loud, and then you are one of those neighbours. Taking your music with you is a possibility if you don’t mind the risk of you or your device getting fried, water being another high-frequency element of housework. Thank you, but no.

This is where Ye Olde Work Song comes into its own. The only real criterion for a work song is that you know how it goes, although it does help if it sounds all right a cappella. You can sing anything – even if you can’t really sing – because, like singing in the shower, housework singing is legally privileged. (For a given value of “legally”. After all, when was the last time Noise Control was called on someone wearing a frilly apron?) Any neighbours within earshot might even enjoy the free concert. As they say, how do you know you’re a talented shower-singer? Applause under the bathroom window.

Singing in the Bath (2130531035)

What to sing is a very individual choice. Myself, I like old hymns and spirituals. There is nothing that goes so well with scrubbing a toilet than I Am A Poor Wayfaring Stranger, and the acoustics aren’t half bad either. Other favourites include: The Lord of the Dance; God Is Working His Purpose Out, (which I first encountered in the 2002 film version of Nicholas Nickleby and hunted all over for before finding it in Hymns Ancient and Modern); It Is Well With My Soul, (doing both parts in the echoes); and that perennial favourite of Sir Howard Morrison‘s, How Great Thou Art.

Interesting bit of trivia: the Maori verse sung in said version of HGThA is not a translation of any of the English verses, but a bit pinched from Abide With Me – a hymn which goes very well with vacuum-cleaner accompaniment. Vacuum cleaners love minor keys.

So, do you sing as you work? Any recommendations?