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| Mango Peelings in the shape of wings. |
Grace: What is it, the thing... the thing that you don't like about me? It was a word you used that provoked me. You called me arrogant. To plunder as it were a God given right. l'd call that arrogant, daddy.
Daddy: But that is exactly what l don't like about you. It is you that is arrogant!
Grace: That's what you came here say? l'm not the one passing judgment, Daddy, you are.
Daddy: No, you do not pass judgment because you sympathize with them. A deprived childhood and a homicide really isn't necessarily a homicide, right?
Grace: The only thing you can blame is circumstances.
Daddy: Rapists and murderers may be the victims according to you, but l call them dogs and if they're lapping up their own vomit the only way to stop them is with the lash.
Grace: But dogs only obey their own nature. So why shouldn't we forgive them?
Daddy: Dogs can be taught many useful things but not if we forgive them every time they obey their own nature.
Grace: So, l'm arrogant. l'm arrogant because l forgive people?
Daddy: My God. Can't you see how condescending you are when you say that? You have this preconceived notion that nobody, listen that nobody can't possibly attain the same high ethical standards as you so you exonerate them. l can not think of anything more arrogant than that. You, my child... my dear child you forgive others with excuses that you would never in the world permit for yourself.
Grace: Why shouldn't l be merciful? Why?
Daddy: No, no, no. You should, you should be merciful when there is time to be merciful. But you must maintain your own standard. You owe them that. You owe them that. The penalty you deserve for your transgressions they deserve for their transgressions.
Grace: They are human beings
Daddy: No, no, no.
Grace: Does every human being need to be accountable for their actions?
Daddy: Of course they do. But you don't even give them that chance. And that is extremely arrogant. l love you, l love you. l love you to death. But you are the most arrogant person l have ever met. And you call me arrogant! l have no more to say.
... Grace looked at the gooseberry bushes so fragile in the smooth darkness. lt was good to know that if you did not treat them ill they would be there come spring as always and come summer they'd again be bursting with the quite incomprehensible quantity of berries that were so good in pies specially with cinnamon.
Grace looked around at the frightened faces behind the windowpanes that were following her every step and felt ashamed of being part of inflicting that fear.
How could she ever hate them for what was at bottom merely their weakness?
She would probably have done things like those that had befallen her if she'd lived in one of these houses to measure them by her own yardstick as her father put it.
Would she not, in all honesty have done the same as Chuck and Vera and Ben and Mrs. Henson and Tom and all these people in their houses?
Grace paused.
And while she did, the clouds scattered and let the moonlight through and Dogville underwent another of those little changes of light.
It was if the light, previously so merciful and faint finally refused to cover up for the town any longer.
Suddenly you could no longer imagine a berry that would appear one day on a gooseberry bush but only see the thorn that was there right now.
The light now penetrated every unevenness and flaw in the buildings... and in... the people!
And all of a sudden she knew the answer to her question all too well.
If she had acted like them she could not have defended a single one of her actions and could not have condemned them harshly enough.
It was as if her sorrow and pain finally assumed their rightful place.
No. What they had done was not good enough. And if one had the power to put it to rights, it was one's duty to do so for the sake of the other towns. For the sake of humanity. And not least for the sake of the human being that was Grace herself...
Singing along to Enola Gay while driving home last light my boyfriend commented how much I loved the 80's and 90's (mostly because of the music and flannel shirts) more than he did. And unlike me he was old enough to actually "live" through it (been there, done that, still got my acid-washed jeans). I responded by saying that maybe it's because we tend to romanticize things we were never really part of.
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