Lili - "The Man Who Hated People" (short Story)

"The Man Who Hated People" (short Story)

"The Man Who Hated People" appeared in the October 28, 1950 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. It is lighter in tone than other versions of the story. In particular, the abuse heaped by the puppeteer on the innocent "girl" is emotional and verbal. Unlike the novel The Love of Seven Dolls, the short story does not even hint at physical or sexual abuse.

The story opens in a New York City television studio where Milly, a "sweet-faced girl with slightly harassed expression," is about to make her farewell appearance on the Peter and Panda show.

Peter and Panda are part of an ensemble of puppets; they are a leprechaun and a panda respectively; other puppets include Arthur, a "raffish crocodile;" Mme. Robineau, a French lady "of indeterminate age with dyed hair;" Doctor Henderson, a penguin; and Mr. Tootenheimer, a toymaker. They are all operated by a single puppeteer, named Crake Villeridge. Despite being a puppet show, it has, like the real-life Kukla, Fran and Ollie TV show, a huge audience of all ages. Also like Kukla, Fran and Ollie, there is no script: "it's all ad-libbed". (In fact, the illustration included with the story features the actual stage used for Kukla, Fran and Ollie.) At the end of the show, "millions watching felt a sense of loss as though a family close to them were breaking up."

Milly has been with the show two years, and, as in other versions of the story, she interacts in a spontaneous and endearing way directly with the personas of the puppets. In a flashback, we learn that during her audition, she had met and talked to the puppets before meeting any human being. Not realizing that this encounter was her audition, she is surprised when a station representative meets her and tells her "Your performance this afternoon came closest to what wants." She says "But it actually wasn't a performance" and is told "Exactly. The first time you start giving a performance, you're through."

Villeridge, we learn, is French Canadian, and had once been headed for a serious career as a hockey player. In an accident, two men "skated over the side of his face," ending his hockey career, and seriously and permanently disfiguring him.

She soon learns that Villeridge is emotionally an abuser. She loves the on-air performances, loves the puppets and their personalities, and finds Mr. Tootenheimer, the wise old toymaker, particularly comforting. But she hates Villeridge and what he does to her in rehearsal and after the show. He shouts at her, demeans her, criticizes everything she has done, and humiliates her in front of the program staff. When she meets a nice man named Fred Archer and believes she is "a little in love" with him, she decides she can no longer withstand with Villeridge and his tyrannical ways. She announces that she is marrying Archer and gives notice.

After her farewell show, she changes into her street dress. She waits for everyone else to leave the studio, afraid of encountering Villeridge who "might be waiting for her with one last attack." As she leaves, she hears the voice of Arthur, the puppet, who says "I stayed behind. Milly, take me with you." Soon she is talking to Arthur and the other puppets. Mr. Tootenheimer, the "old philosopher," explains to her that every man is composed of many things, and that the puppets represent aspects of Villeridge's real personality:

And if a man who has been cut and scarred and is ashamed of his appearance, who loved you from the first time his eyes rested upon your face, could be a brutal fool, believing that if you could be made to love all of the things he really was, you would never again recoil from the things he seemed to be.

Millie cries "Crake! Crake! come to me." They embrace, and Milly decides to say goodbye to "the outside world—reality—Fred Archer" and live with Villeridge and his created "Never-Never Land of the mind."