Theme Of Villain In Alistair Macleod's No Great Mischief

Hero or villain? In Alistair MacLeod’s No Great Mischief, Calum commits violent crimes and by all accounts should be considered the antagonist. However, this is not the case. To outsiders he appears violent and rough, but within his clan he is the compass that guides all its members. An intrepid leader who falls victim to his own history, Calum lacked guidance as a young man and this contributed to his later struggles with the law. In fact, Calum’s greatest downfall comes from his goodness. He is stabbed in the back after blindly trusting a stranger on account of their shared lineage. Through anecdotes and flashbacks Calum is revealed to be a sympathetic and multifaceted character. In a novel where bloodlines are revered and respected and devotion

Both Fern and Calum are the leaders of their respective groups and have the same responsibilities, yet while both are not afraid to let insults fly, Fern is constantly portrayed as the attacker while Calum is both the victim and the defender of the clan’s honor. Once again, perspective plays a significant role in the characterization of Calum and other key players in the story. One of the main ideas presented in No Great Mischief 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 deeply trusts in the common threads of fate that bind the two. Like any good leader, Calum “looks after his own blood” before he looks after “his” own blood, and this ultimately leads to his tragic