Alistair Macleod's No Great Mischief

Is Calum a hero or villain? In Alistair MacLeod’s No Great Mischief, Alexander’s oldest brother commits violent crimes and by all accounts could be considered an antagonist. However, this is not the case. To outsiders Calum appears violent and rough, but within his clan he is their guiding compass. An intrepid leader who falls victim to his own history, Calum lacked guidance as a young man and this contributes to his later struggles with the law. Through anecdotes and flashbacks Calum is revealed to be a sympathetic and multifaceted character whose downfall comes from being too trusting of a stranger who would ultimately betray him. In a novel where bloodlines are revered and respected and devotion to clan is crucial, goodness is defined not

by moral excellence but by the extent of one’s loyalty. In this respect, Calum is overflowing with goodness, with love for his family and respect for his past.
When readers first meet Calum as a sickly alcoholic living in squalor.

Despite the uncomfortable circumstances, Alexander is hardly phased and shows his brother tender affection. Because he is loved by Alexander, Calum is portrayed as better person than say, Fern Picard, who is given no allowances under the critical eye of our narrator. Calum’s back story is tragic and develops Calum as a sympathetic character. He was a boy thrust into adulthood too soon by the shocking death of his parents, an orphan forced to live in poverty and quickly hardened by the cruel realities of life and loss. Due to this, Calum is generally detached from other people, and his deepest connections are with animals: first with Christie the horse and later with Piseag the stray kitten. Like a puzzle, Calum is not pieced together until later in the novel when he and Alexander begin working together. The many sad fragments of his past come together to form an image of a man who is unable to let go of all that has happened to him. While the two are driving to Sudbury, Calum reveals his regret over not being there when his parents died, and that he is still struggling to come to terms with the death of their cousin. Alexander later describes Calum as “...the man who, in his youthful despair, went looking for a rainbow, while others thought he was just wasting gas” (MacLeod 282-283). This image of Calum as a hopeless dreamer searching for closure and a meaning for his parent’s death humanizes

him.
“Grandpa had his beer bottle on the table and Calum was perhaps four or five. As he passed it the sun came through the window in a certain way that reflected off the glass and he saw his little boy’s reflection thrown back towards him. ‘Oh’ Calum said, ‘I see myself in that beer bottle. It’s really me. It’s like I’m in there.’... later I saw him looking at the bottle, but the light had changed and he couldn’t find himself again. It seemed almost like a prophecy of what was to happen later. He was such a dear little boy.” p. 190
In this passage, Grandma is speaking, and through her we learn more about young Calum, an innocent and curious boy whose happiness has yet to be eclipsed by tragedy. Throughout the novel there is significant use of light and dark to contrast happiness and sadness, especially the night that the parents drown on the ice. The idea of the light changing here likely refers to this sudden loss and the fact that he “couldn’t find himself again” may represent his feelings of loss and loneliness from being forced to grow up too soon and led down a path of troublemaking due to lack of guidance. The talk of prophecy relates to the idea presented in the novel that events are predestined and that fate dictates the past, present, and future. Also the fact that he sees his reflection in a beer bottle could also be dramatic irony foreshadowing the alcoholism that will consume his life later on.
If any character can be considered a villain in No Great Mischief, it would be Fern Picard, the malicious leader of the Quebécois miners. Both Fern and Calum are the leaders of their respective groups and have similar responsibilities, yet even though the dislike is mutual, Fern is constantly portrayed as the attacker while Calum is the victim who relentlessly defends his clan’s honour. Once again, perspective plays a significant role in the characterization of Calum and other key players in the story. One of the principal ideas presented in the novel is that outside of a clan, one’s value rapidly diminishes. The narration never takes readers out of Clan Calum Ruadh, so Calum is never shown through the eyes of outsiders.  In this respect, Alexander has painted Calum as a character to be pitied rather than judged because his most terrible and violent act is committed in self defense and is the result of a misunderstanding. Fern accuses the Macdonalds of stealing and of this Calum is completely innocent. The two men have both been deceived by the Californian Alexander, an outsider who does not understand their values. In reality, Calum and Fern have much more in common than Calum and his American cousin, but Calum trusts in the common threads of fate that bind the two. Like any skilled leader, Calum “looks after his own blood” before he looks after “his” own blood, and this ultimately leads to his tragic downfall.
Fern Picard is not the only leader with whom Calum is paired or twinned.

Calum’s fate has been crossed with that of the great-great-great grandfather from whom his name originates, the intrepid clan leader Calum Ruadh. Much like his ancestor who bravely led his family into the unknown, Calum acts as the modern day clan leader, guiding his family through negotiations and contracts with mining companies and essentially leading their mass exodus from Cape Breton. Grandfather describes Calum Ruadh as “... responsible for all the people clustered around him. He was… like the goose who points the V, and he temporarily wavered and lost courage” (MacLeod 25), and Alexander later uses this same analogy to describe Calum’s position as leader within their family unit. “When the Canada geese fly north in the spring,” he states “there is a leader at the apex of the V as the formation moves across the land. Those who follow must believe that the leader is doing the best he can, but there is no guarantee that all journeys will end in salvation for everyone involved” (MacLeod 260). This idea of salvation is also related to the difficulties and hardship experienced by both Calums in their respective new environments. At the end of the novel, Alexander makes the most profound connection between the two Calums. When his brother dies, Alexander echoes the carving on Calum Ruadh’s gravestone “Fois do t’anam. Peace to his soul” (Macleod 283) This symbolic act elevates Calum to a status equally

mythical as that of their famed ancestor and emphasizes the way in which he has touched the lives of his family members.
When Calum is wrongly imprisoned, readers feel not a satisfaction of knowing that a hardened criminal is locked away, but profound sadness over the injustice served to an honorable man. Alexander loves his brother despite the distance between them stemming from their vastly different upbringings. While Alexander was showered with affection and love as a child, Calum’s youth was marked by tragedy loneliness. Like the many Clan Calum Ruadh men who have come before him, Calum is destined to be the leader, to be “... a self-reliant man… overtaken by his own history” (MacLeod 265). In Alistair MacLeod’s No Great Mischief, Calum is portrayed not as a violent man, but as a man who perseveres and survives for the benefit of his family, and in a world when blood is thicker than water, this is a good as goodness.