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- Title
DOES THE WICKED MAN?
- Authors
McDonough, Robert E.
- Abstract
Ford Madox Ford's 1931 novel When the Wicked Man poses questions about the significance of the title and about the success of Ford's effort to integrate two contrasting narrative modes. Joe Notterdam, the title character, is an Englishman who has lived in the United States for many years. His 'wickedness' covers four areas: in business, he has 'poached authors' from smaller publishing firms and bribed legislators to choose his firm's line of schoolbooks; concerning sex, he has deflowered two virgins and attempted rape; about drunkenness he is forced to conclude that he will never be strong enough to reform permanently; and under the heading of violence he holds himself guilty of three deaths and the attempted rape. Ford's inclusion of memories of a Wild West youth within the memory of the late- Fordian protagonist Notterdam is jarring and ineffective. And although the biblical verse from which the title is taken indicates reform and Notterdam at the end seems to be getting the girl and the money, the source of the money and Notterdam's conviction that he is too corrupt to deserve his young love suggest only that he is being rewarded for his wickedness.
- Subjects
UNITED States; FORD, Ford Madox, 1873-1939; WHEN the Wicked Man (Book); BRITISH in literature; BRITISH people; GOOD &; evil; FICTION
- Publication
International Ford Madox Ford Studies, 2012, Vol 11, p109
- ISSN
1569-4070
- Publication type
Article