A Surreptitious Evil

Many years back, a heinous crime was committed towards a

certain Claire Wäscher, which resulted in her estrangement, as a base

tramp who had reveled in promiscuous encounters with the opposite sex.

She had been pregnant when this crime was perpetrated, and the child

passed soon after, leaving Claire anguished and alone. In The Visit by

Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Claire returns—though with the oil-rich surname of

Zachanassian—as a vengeful billionairess, willing to pull the small town

of Güllen from the brink of disintegration (no pun intended). In return for

her lavish infusion of wealth into the decrepit town, she demands the life

of Alfred Ill, who years ago, through falsehoods and trickery, turned her

into a “whore”, robbing her of due life. In Act II, Ill, who was renowned

as the “town’s most-loved resident”, sees his relationship with the town

people shift drastically, following Claire’s “proposal”. The first change is

progressively introduced, observed as a sort of doubt or insecurity, which

sidles its way into Ill’s perception of his relationship with the

townspeople. This is followed by the second, more tangible shift of the

emergence of artificiality in the comportment of the townspeople. This

shift in the nature of Güllener interpersonal relationships does wonders

to further the plot; creating ominous, exciting, and sudden expectations,

as we begin to see beneath the veneer of this of this seemingly innocent,

compassionate community.


In the second act, Ill comes to find that doubt is a

surreptitious evil, slyly weeding its way into the psyche like pestilence.

The act opens by Ill’s general store, where we first learn that all of his

customers are buying goods on credit. Rather plainly, this is an

indication that the people continue to run themselves into financial debt,

at once disregarding their decline into poverty, but also relying on each

other to do this. At this point all is well, and Ill contemplates his

presence as the town’s favorite man, seemingly assured that the town

will protect him, despite the rather morbid sight of the gum-chewers

carrying funeral wreaths for the empty (yet to be filled) coffin. Slowly,

but surely, Dürrenmatt introduces an element of doubt into Ill’s

relationship with the townspeople, the catalyst to their metamorphosis.

“ILL: You’ve got new shoes. New yellow shoes.” (43) In abject poverty,

the town seems to be buying more goods, planting a pestilential seed of

uncertainty in Ill’s mind—that perhaps he is not as protected as it seems.

To carry on with this metaphor, once the seed of mistrust has been

planted, all of the Ill’s relationships appear to spiral downwards, creating

a figurative rift between him and the town. The shift in relationship is

subtle, with levels of hostility stealthily increasing with time. The

policeman refuses to arrest Claire without further evidence of

misconduct, but as he speaks, Ill notices a gold tooth in his mouth,

which he actively denies, accusing Ill of hallucinating. “ILL: You’re all

waiting.” (49) All of a sudden, with the town thoughtlessly running

themselves into financial obligation, Ill ceases to feel the certainty of

security. The shift in the nature of Ill’s relationships with the

townspeople becomes palpable when Ill rushes to the mayor for comfort,

and is consequently accused of nihilistic and untrusting behavior. Ill finds

not only his internal but also his status security threatened when the

mayor, who informs him that he was not fit to take over his position,

deceives him. “MAYOR: "The post of Mayor requires certain guarantees

of good moral character which you can no longer furnish" (54). This shift

in the attitude of the townspeople and Ill’s perception has no better

comparison than an “avalanche”, with specks of doubt and uncertainty

viciously snowballing into outright duplicity and paranoia. “ILL: The town

is preparing the feast of my murder, and I am dying of horror.” (57)



The second shift perceptible in the second act is the

emerging artificiality in the townspeople’s attitudes towards Ill.

Gradually, all the Gülleners appear to put up a veneer of sheer

phoniness, alienating Ill and pushing him—with a smile a half—towards

desolation. Artificiality in attitude is initially distinguishable when Ill

consults the policeman, who convinces him of hallucination rather than

addressing his new purchases (avoidance goes hand in hand with

artificiality). The mayor then ups the ante by coaxing Ill out of his fear,

only to let him know that despite “nothing having changed”, he is no

longer eligible for the position of mayor, for lack of moral righteousness.

People begin to treat Ill as a child, refusing to listen to him and

convincing him of misapprehension, thus estranging him from the rest of

them: no longer the town’s most loved. Perhaps most ironically, the

pivotal moment in the “shift towards artificiality” comes when he visits

the pastor, only to be lectured about the goodness of god and the

people, and then told that he is a temptation to the people. “PASTOR:

Flee! We are weak, Christians and heathen alike. Flee, the bell is

resounding in Güllen, the bell of treachery.” (59) It is at this point that

the shift in attitude is evidently marked, and Alfred Ill confronts the

reality of his mortality.



These shifts the relationship between Ill and the townspeople

in Act II are essential to the advancement of the plot, whether that be

the snowballing of doubt and insecurity, or the dense artificiality that

begins to plague the manners of the Gülleners. Up until this point, all

works on a “morally righteous” scale, with the people calmly refusing to

have blood on their hands, rightfully defending the man that is their

“greatest and favorite”. However, the emergence of doubt in the mind of

the protagonist in such an ideal circumstance has a similar effect on

readers: we begin to suspect treachery. As with any tragicomedy,

deception is a very real element to the plot, and it is almost bound to

happen. In fact, it is the gradual and stealthy manner in which the shift

in relationships takes place that evokes interest, paving the way for

twists and turns in the plot. With the loss of morality, the possibilities for

a comedic plot become boundless. All of a sudden, Ill finds himself all

alone, fighting against a community that does not even acknowledge

their participation in the fight. With these shifts in certainty and morality,

readers experience similar anguish and deception, ignorant of which

character’s assurance to trust, metamorphosing this originally linear plot

into an unpredictable macabre thread we are but forced to follow, much

like poor Alfred Ill.



“ILL: One of you will hold me back if I get on the train.” (67) In

the second act, the shifts in distrust and artificiality in the relationship

between Ill and the townspeople that occur, paint Güllen with a dystopian

shade, oddly reminiscent of a transition from Gary Ross’s Pleasantville

to The Giver by L. Lowry. Through the gradual manipulation of character

actions (e.g. purchasing) and interaction (e.g. parent-like coaxing),

Friedrich Dürrenmatt, furtively edges change into the plot, revealing

cracks in the seemingly morally sane town of Güllen. These shifts are

critical in the advancement of the plot, as they open possibility for

deception, but also prove effective as ominous projections of Ill’s fate in

the town. Nothing is what it seems, appearances meaningless and morals

fickle.