Person on the Page

When I was growing up, the women in my family cursed.

My mother and her sisters spewed white-hot streams of profanity that hissed and steamed on the air. Even my grandmother, an otherwise soft-spoken woman with a strong religious upbringing,  kicked up a verbal ruckus when provoked.

The women in my family cursed, but mainly in the privacy of their homes. Less often in public.

As I grew up, however, I was instructed never to curse. Not even in private. My mother told me that using bad language would ruin my chances of being accepted into what she called “polite society.”

Regarding cursing, what was good for the goose, apparently, was not good for the gosling.

~ ~ ~

Some critics have dismissed Thea Sharrock’s 2023 film Wicked Little Letters as disappointing.  They condemn it for its predictability, its failure to push the concept of profanity far enough, and for what has been perceived as a tiresomely rehashed condemnation of patriarchy. Some call the film a missed opportunity to explore in depth issues of gender, class, and race.  

Based loosely on actual events, the story takes place during the 1920s in Littlehampton, England.  Edith Swan, a middle-aged single woman who has devoted her life to caring for her parents, lives under the authoritative control of her father. Shortly after a free-wheeling Irish woman with a penchant for bawdy language, Rose Gooding, moves in next door to the Swans, Edith begins receiving anonymous obscenity-laced, sexually-charged letters that she accuses Rose of sending.

Viewers of the film can quickly surmise that Edith herself is sending the letters. Thus, the story fails as a whodunit because viewers can solve the mystery long before the characters do. The real mystery is why Edith chooses to write and send these notes to herself and others, missives filled with language that she and her post-Victorian Littlehampton neighbors deem shockingly objectionable.

While some of the critics’ observations of the film’s weaknesses are valid, I believe Wicket Little Letters conveys an important message about the use of bad language that should not be overlooked.

~ ~ ~

Edith’s father, Edward Swan, runs a tight household ship. In fact, he refers to himself as its captain. Under his close surveillance, Edith is expected to be a model of Christian virtue and daughterly obedience. At moments in the story when she inadvertently expresses her viewpoint on a subject, she is immediately chastised, hushed, and sent off to write a Bible verse two hundred times as punishment.

In the film, the contents of Edith’s wicked letters are shared liberally, read aloud by some of the more severely straight-laced characters, including Edward himself. The juxtaposition of the conservative, hyper-Christian characters with the obscene language they read from the letters lends humorous shock value to their performance. Since, as the story unfolds, viewers hear plenty of Edith’s written curses, I might quote here some of the language to demonstrate the over-the-top nature of her profanity. 

But I can’t.

I can’t bring myself to include it here. I was taught never to use bad language, and the voice that issued that directive still rings in my mind.

Because of my upbringing, I find myself there with Edith in a tense scene played by actors Timothy Spall (Edward) and Olivia Colman (Edith) as she receives one of her father’s reprimands.

Edward: Whose house is this?

Edith: (voice quavering) Yours.

Edward: Am I the captain of this ship?

Edith: Yes.

Edward: And who are you?

Edith: (Here Colman conveys brilliantly the character’s panic with her angst-laden expression and barely articulated reply) I don’t know . . .

Edward: (triumphantly) You’re my little Edie.

Edward sends Edith off to her room to write and rewrite Proverbs 3:11-12. Viewers observe her there by herself, pen in hand, composing instead an explosion of obscenities that will later be included in one of her wicked epistles.

At that point, I am no longer there with Edith. I can observe and admire her efforts to cope with her father’s oppressive control through her own brand of scripto-therapy.  But I can’t imagine myself using the language she writes.

~ ~ ~

A wealth of research suggests that occasional use of what is socially defined as bad language serves as a health-promoting coping mechanism. According to psychologist Emily Waters, cursing produces immediate physiological benefits. Circulation increases. Endorphin and serotonin levels rise, resulting in pain relief and a sense of well-being.

Using bad language also benefits us psychologically.  It allows us to exert at least imaginary control over conditions that are uncontrollable in our lives: situations that frighten, overwhelm, or disappoint us. Cursing provides an outlet for aggression at a symbolic level, letting us respond assertively to situations that anger us without becoming physically violent.

In Wicked Little Letters, then, Edith Swan is a coping mastermind. She responds to her father’s repressive controls with spontaneous spurts of obscenities that allow her to feel at least some control over her predicament. Her profanity-laced missives give her a means of striking back, however indirectly, to her father’s verbal bludgeonings.

I get it. 

I’m convinced by the research that identifies cursing as an important means of dealing with oppressive situations. Unlike Edith, however, I am unable to do it.

I can admire her and cheer her on. But I can’t force myself to follow suit. Instead, I am plagued by recurring dreams in which I try to shout my objections to whatever unjust situation the dream presents, to curse at people who have sought to control me. But I find myself mute. I try to shout, but I have no voice.

I cannot bring myself to use bad language, even in my dreams.

~ ~ ~

In his book What the F: What Swearing Reveals about Our Language, Our Brains, and Ourselves, cognitive scientist Benjamin Bergen explains that different areas of the brain work independently to allow us to process language and formulate utterances. Wernicke’s area, for instance, regulates the process of understanding language and choosing words that communicate our thoughts. Broca’s area regulates the ability to speak spontaneously using established grammatical structures.

Another area of the brain, according to Bergen, is responsible for what we experience as cursing. The basal ganglia regulate speech that is unplanned and reflexive. This more primitive part of the brain produces the words that are culturally defined as bad language. Curse words. Often people who, due to stroke or other brain injury, lose their ability to formulate their own thoughts into words retain their ability to curse. They are able to produce reflexive outbursts of profanity because the basal ganglia remain undamaged.

Since a region of the brain seems to be designated to initiate and produce those automatic outbursts of speech that are considered bad language, cursing must be important to our health and well-being.  It must be a natural and necessary human activity.

~ ~ ~

Recognizing the potential benefits, I still can’t allow myself to do it.

Unlike my hero Edith Swan, I am unable to scale the hurdle that might free me from my inhibition.

I could reason that my inability to curse stems from the fact that I believe that language is important. That it should not be used reflexively. Language should be used to sway others, enact change, build bonds, stir people to action. To educate. To encourage. To comfort.

So, I might say, people should choose their words carefully.

Words wield power. I could argue that I do not use bad language because, at its root, such language is violent.  It exerts symbolic aggression, yes, but aggression nevertheless. Curses assault the hearer. They demand attention. They escalate conflict.

Curses wound.

I could argue for the responsible use of language. For a deep respect among those who use words for the power and potential they carry.

All of my arguments would be valid. But they wouldn’t fully explain why, when it comes to bad language, I am consigned to silence.

~ ~ ~

At the end of Wicked Little Letters, Edith is discovered to be the real writer of the letters. She is prosecuted, convicted, and sentenced to a year of imprisonment with hard labor.

That may not sound like a victory.

However, as she is being carted away to prison, she encounters her father one last time.  He assures her that he will see that she is exonerated so that she can come back home. Edith responds by shouting a tirade of curses at him and declaring that she will never return. 

At last, she is freed to say openly what up to that moment she could only write in secret.

As the carriage bears her off to prison, she laughs. While viewers may see her transition from life in her father’s home to hard labor in prison as a less-than-triumphant tradeoff, Edith doesn’t appear to see it that way.

She is finally liberated. She now has a voice.

Cover Photo: Bru-nO at Pixabay