Anger MANAGEMENT
Anger can be a driving force in fiction, says Margaret James – as long as the writer knows how to control it
Anger is a short madness,’ said the Roman poet Horace – ira furor brevis est.
But it’s a fact that in real life some people seem to be almost permanently angry. They live their lives at a pitch of fury that comes perilously close to long-term insanity.
Luckily, most of us don’t get into that state of short or even long term madness very often, or indeed at all. But I’m sure we all know that making important decisions or choices when we’re upset or angry is usually unwise?
It’s the same in fiction, in which angry characters tend to make bad choices. They have blazing rows that result in them storming out of marriages, jobs or other kinds of relationships, apparently for good. So, if they later change their minds, they need to eat so much humble pie that they have indigestion for a month.
Romantic comedies often feature tempestuous arguments or coldly furious exchanges between lovers, generally followed by emotional reconciliations: that’s unless one or both parties have said or (which is worse) written something that’s absolutely unforgiveable and impossible to forget. Or had you left a note on his pillow – some heroines never can resist these little essays in literature – and they do make it rather embarrassing to go back, says Nancy Mitford’s hero Fabrice in The Pursuit of Love after the heroine Linda has left her second husband and run away to Paris – and, as it turns out, Linda finds she can’t go back.