Exploring Narrator-Reader Relationships with Jim Thompson’s Victims of Circumstance: Lou Ford, Dolly Dillon, William “Kid” Collins, and Charles Bigger By Nicolena Marie Crescenzo A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of English Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, FL December 2018 Copyright 2018 by Nicolena Marie Crescenzo ii Acknowledgements The author wishes to express sincere gratitude to her committee members for all of their support, and special thanks to my advisor for his patience and encouragement during the typing of this manuscript. The author is grateful to her family for always supporting her efforts to be successful. Last but not least, the author wishes to thank her mentors during her undergraduate studies for their recommendations academically and professionally that have helped her reach this point. iv Abstract Author: Nicolena Marie Crescenzo Title: Exploring Narrator-Reader Relationships with Jim Thompson’s Victims of Circumstance: Lou Ford, Dolly Dillon, William “Kid” Collins, and Charles Bigger Institution: Florida Atlantic University Thesis Advisor: Dr. Robert Don Adams Degree: Master of English Year: 2018 By examining Jim Thompson’s novels, published between 1952-1955–The Killer Inside Me, A Hell of a Woman, After Dark, My Sweet, and Savage Night–this essay interrogates the relationship created between the narrator and the reader, how the narrator–and Thompson in turn–highlights certain societal flaws, emphasizing how ethical consequence is born out of the attempt to attain freedom from one’s cultural circumstance–both in terms of economic restraint and mental health status. Through this, Thompson implies that the reader is trapped in similar economic and ethical pre- dispositions. The reader is often left questioning what they might have done, or been able to do, in similar circumstances. This creates a larger frame by which Thompson implies that the reader is trapped in similar economic and ethical pre-dispositions as his narrators. He highlights societal flaws, demonstrating how the pursuit of freedom of one’s cultural circumstance bears ethical consequence. v Exploring Narrator-Reader Relationships with Jim Thompson’s Victims of Circumstance: Lou Ford, Dolly Dillon, William “Kid” Collins, and Charles Bigger Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Jim Thompson ..................................................................................................................... 4 Lou Ford.............................................................................................................................. 7 Dolly Dillon ...................................................................................................................... 20 William “Kid” Collins ...................................................................................................... 35 Charles Bigger .................................................................................................................. 47 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 60 vi Introduction Jim Thompson’s work utilizes the conventions of noir and crime drama in order to present his readers with narrators of questionable moral character. In his novels, published between 1952-1955, Thompson highlights four first-person narrations that present themselves as victims of cultural circumstance, modeling real ethical dilemmas. By developing a relationship through direct appeals, his narrators suggest to the reader that their wrongdoings are justified, often leaving the reader questioning what they may have done in similar circumstances. Through their criminal behaviors, the narrators appear to break free of their circumstance only to face moral consequence in death. Through this, Thompson implies that the reader is trapped in similar economic and ethical pre-dispositions. I will examine the relationship the narrator creates with the reader, how the narrator–and Thompson in turn–highlights certain societal flaws, and how the pursuit of freedom of one’s cultural circumstance bears ethical consequence. Of the four novels I’ll be discussing, I will start with The Killer Inside Me, originally published in 1952. Popular American horror fiction writer, Stephen King, wrote a Forward for this novel in 1988 and titled it “WARNING! WARNING! HITCHHIKERS MAY BE ESCAPED LUNATICS,” a hint at things to come in the novel. The Killer Inside Me is arguably Jim Thompson’s most graphic novel with a narrator who Stephen King refers to as the Great American Sociopath. Lou Ford, the narrator, kills and kills and kills again, while attempting to persuade the reader that he has no choice. Not only does he argue that they’ve provoked his sickness, he also attempts to 1 show the reader how each person he has murdered just isn’t worth life. Ford shows the reader how some people deserve to die and he’s done a favor to society by ending their lives. I’ll follow up the discussion of Lou Ford with that of Dolly Dillon, the narrator of Jim Thompson’s 1954 novel, A Hell of a Woman. Dolly Dillon is a door-to-door salesman and past due account collector for an establishment called Pay-E-Zee stores. He has a hell of a time with women and does his best to find a way to build a better life for himself, attempting to rise above his circumstance. Dillon also murders a few people, but, as he claims, none of them undeserved; he is a self-proclaimed reasonable guy after all. A slave to both his job and mental illness, Dolly Dillon in the pursuit of happiness tries to find ways to convince the reader what he’s doing is right. In Jim Thompson’s 1955 novel, After Dark, My Sweet, which I’ll discuss following Dolly Dillon, William “Kid” Collins narrates his way through a kidnapping and aims for redemption. Collins presents his audience with a long and winding personal history; Collins tells the reader he is an ex-professional fighter and ex-military man, as well as an ex-mental institution resident who has good intentions. Plagued by his reputation as a knock out fighter, Collins wants nothing more than to escape the “concrete pasture” he finds himself stuck in (29). He wants something more out of life and even though he gets himself roped into a kidnapping, he tries to convince the reader that he had little choice in the matter and is making the most of it. After wrapping up my section on Collins, I’ll finish with Thompson’s 1953 novel Savage Night. I saved this one for last because of the bizarre nature in which the narrator, Carl Bigelow, suffers his ultimate consequence; however, despite the way his consequence is delivered to the reader, similar themes persist in this text. Bigelow, who’s real name is Little Bigger, or 2 Charles Bigger, is the only killer of the four that commits his crime because he has to. A hired hit man, slave to The Man with a Lou Ford-like sociopathic quality, Bigelow makes it clear that he, too, has no choice but to follow through with the kill. Each narrator finds a way to convince the reader that their crime is necessary, each claiming that the reasoning behind their actions is completely justified. Though their actions seem justified to the reader, each narrator seems to drown in their circumstance, which leads them to an eventual death. 3 Jim Thompson Before digging into these narratives, I find it important to talk about the author of the narratives I will be discussing, Jim Thompson. In my section on Thompson I discuss he and his father’s circumstance that placed them as a prime subject of a narrative of the sort we read by him. Biographer Robert Polito wrote of Jim Thompson’s novels, “Reading a Thompson novel is like being trapped in a bomb shelter with a chatty maniac who also happens to be the air-raid warden” (5). Thompson’s novels, especially the four I will be discussing, take the reader on a journey with a sociopathic criminal and the reader is trapped within the narrative right along with him. Thompson’s influence for his novels came from his personal experience and that of his family, specifically that of his father. Polito suggests Thompson’s novels are self-reflective, stating that they gave “Thompson a scaffolding to stage his…inward dramas, and to transform his chills and fevers into vivid literature;” this self-reflection works on both a level for Thompson and the reader (12). Interestingly, Jim Thompson speaks to the reader through Polito’s biography of Thompson posthumously, as do his relatives who were interviewed during the process of Polito writing the biography. Thompson and his relatives’ stories, just like those of Thompson’s narrators I’ll discuss here, are told as death crept in on them; many of the people interviewed died prior to the book being published (15). With Jim Thompson’s father being a sheriff, a notoriously adventurous one at that, Thompson was able to draw influence into his writings. Polito cites, “The territorial tales his father handed down to him shadowed the background of Thompson’s fiction, 4 and they even shaped the bedtime stories he would share with his own children” (28). Thompson loved to tell the stories of his father and his father’s life shaped who he would become. From his father’s position in law enforcement influencing the creation of the narrator Lou Ford, to his family troubles with money creating