Carnage Response

The movie Carnage made certain patterns that I observed while reading the play more clearly. This is partly because it seems to move at a faster pace than reading and because it is easier to keep track of the characters when there is a visual representation.

What I noticed was a divergence in the moral views in the two couples, which I at first mistakenly perceived as class differences. Their moral compasses shape their personality and language, and like their integrity, degrade during the course of the evening. This becomes apparent in this setting because the argument was initiated due to differences in parenting. The political affiliation that I assumed, and therefore their morality, are consistent with how they parent (or the types of parents they try to be).

Penelope (Véronique) portrays herself as empathetic and understanding. She tries to find an understanding between the parents and is concerned with the well-being of both. She is portrayed as a liberal, with a priority on reconciliation, peace, and taking the high road on moral conflicts. This is why she leads the conversation and is obsessed with taking into consideration how the children feel. She talks about how violence is below her and that the other couple’s child needs to understand the effect his actions had. This results in a persistent savior complex in this character. This applies to what she says about her book on the Darfur tragedy as well. Later, she is called out on her superficiality (and rightfully so) as she abandons this façade. She is at first, the one who calls for intervention and resolution in the conflict between the boys. She should be attentive to both sides. She tries to be the peacemaker, reaching out to this other couple and being very understanding. When she begins to lose ground in her argument, she abandons this and becomes less concerned with empathy. She says “There’s no origin. There’s just an eleven-year-old hitting someone. With a stick” (36). This contradicts what we would assume to be a more liberal moral view: that the circumstances matter. She is rightfully called out on her inconsistency.

Michael (Michel) has a similar perception of the conflict in theory, but unlike his wife, he is successful in being empathetic. He relates to Allen/Alain and their son when he recollects his own experience in a “gang” when he was a kid, even telling a story about a physical altercation he had. This frustrates his wife. Throughout most of the movie, he is pacifying and appears genuinely considerate. He helps his wife dry her magazines, helps Allen/Alain dry his phone, offers him a drink and a cigar. He seems like a friendly, kind-hearted man that is undeterred by his wife’s negative thoughts and the environment for the longest. He breaks at the end after suffering the deflections of blame when the others bring up his disposal of the hamster. From this point on, he instead adopts a nihilistic perspective and he has some long lines where he rambles on about this.

The other couple begins from the opposite point of view. Allen/Alain, is clearly a less involved parent. He , as a lawyer, cares about the damages and making the offense seem less than it already is. He is the one that brings up the “God of Carnage'' line. He sees the altercation as a natural occurrence and is not concerned with rectifying his son’s behavior. This here is the source of the main conflict: he is a negligent parent to some extent, and believes in personal strength while Penelope/Véronique believes in getting involved in the conflict and tries to believe in empathy and a “civil” approach to resolving the violence. Anette/Nancy similarly is at first open to sorting things about between the children, but gets very defensive as Penelope/Véronique oversteps the boundaries in forcing parental decisions on Allen/Alain and Penelope/Véronique.

As much as gender, power, and ego drive the story I think that the source of the conflict, and the structure the play and movie are made around is the conflicting senses of morality. These senses are also fragile, as is proven by the end. Therefore, some abandon their morality as defensiveness or primal instincts seem to take over, resulting sometimes in complete inversion of principals and speech.