The Scar of Shame - Plot

Plot

As the cast is introduced, their values are related to music: Louise, whose “music is all in discord,” can be seen struggling sporadically and unsuccessfully to escape a birth into low class black society, though she is unable to conjure up the same drive and ambition to succeed seen in Alvin. Music symbolizes refined taste and high class; therefore an appreciation of it helps distinguish people of different “sets” throughout the movie. The scene is set in the city though right away we see stark contrasts. Alvin’s room is bright and has a portrait of Frederick Douglass, a model of social mobility, while just out the window the setting is darker and less prim. This is the juxtaposition of the ghetto and “finer living” which is an important theme throughout the film.

As Louise is introduced, a quote comes up on a title card for our digestion: “One half the world doesn’t know how the other half lives.” There is no prompting or explanation for it; it just appears. It could be taken as referring to ignorance between white and black races, or just within the black social strata. Taking it to mean the latter, the association with Louise makes sense. Throughout the film she tilts from one side: higher class with Alvin, to the other which eventually pulls her down and that is the influence of the ghetto with Spike and Eddie. This half and half between high and low class represents the primary problem that eventually leads to her death.

Alvin sees Louise being beaten by Spike outside while practicing piano and knocks him unconscious, rescuing the damsel in distress then brings her back to Lucretia’s house. It should be noted that Alvin had to descend from his room down to the level where Louise and Spike were, representing a descent into the ghetto. Alvin comments on the injustices that “women of our race are subjected to” and places the blame on lack of education. Lucretia, the owner of the boarding house where Alvin is residing allows Louise to stay, to protect her, in return for chores around the house. Eddie meets with Spike, who is sporting a splendid black eye he claims to have been caused by a trolley car, after the incident and attempts to convince him to let Louise work as an entertainer for him. Spike doesn’t seem enthusiastic and shows regret for beating her, which he would later credit to alcoholism. Spike has some desire to allow his daughter to escape the kind of life he is stuck in but is unable to change any of his actions without being sucked back into his old lifestyle by booze given to him by Eddie.

Eddie represents one of “two sides of black ambition: the urge to flee the ghetto or to control it” Since it seems Eddie is in his element working poker games in the club and also as we see his need to control Spike we can assume that he represents the latter of the fore stated dichotomy of black urban life which is the group aiming to control the ghetto. Eddie learns the truth about the confrontation between Alvin and Spike during dinner at Lucretia’s and we learn something more about Eddie. We see a stark contrast between the refined manners of Alvin who pulls the chair for the women guests and refrains from eating until they are seated and Eddie who helps himself to food without acknowledging the arrival of the women. Later in the evening, Eddie forcefully attempts to bring Louise back to her “old pappy” but again Alvin intervenes. We can assume that Eddie has an ulterior motive. Drunk again off Eddie’s liquor, Spike continues to harass Louise who contemplates suicide if it continues, foreshadowing events to come. Alvin proposes to Louise in a touching scene on the bed after rescuing her again form the altercation claiming that she wouldn’t need to worry about harm if they were married. Here we see a different side of Alvin. Instead of the anti-social, striving for him only mentality, women soften his heart. An important theme is the care and uplifting of women. Characters like Eddie who we are meant to dislike, use women and degrade them while characters we are meant to admire like Alvin bring women up and care for them. After he defends Louise from Eddie at Lucretia’s house, Alvin exclaims, “I’ll teach you to treat our women like that!”

Over more alcohol, Eddie schemes with Spike to distract Alvin with a fake telegram announcing his mother’s illness while they kidnap Louise. Alvin cannot take Louise with him because he hasn’t informed his mother of their marriage which she would not have approved of because of her concern with castes. Louise laments her lot in life and finds a letter from Alvin’s mother urging him to marry another woman who is “part of our set,” referring to the same level in black urban social stratification. She proceeds to rip the letter and then the marriage certificate. Louise “symbolically abandons respectable black values” embodied in her doll as she crushes it remarking: “you too had to be a victim of caste.”

Before they go through with the plan, Spike once again hesitates, remarking that she is better off away from people like him. It is hard to make anything of Spike’s feelings of lament even as he doesn’t take part in the plan but cowers against a fence. It could be interpreted as his surrender to the plight of those trapped in the ghetto with nothing like music to pull them out. Alvin comes back to confront Eddie after learning he had been tricked, and that his mother was visiting friends out of town. The scene is cut back and forth between Alvin in the car in the suburbs and Louise tearing up mementos of their marriage. This crosscutting shows a direct link between the importance Alvin places on the caste system and his loyalties to his mother and the inability for their relationship to work. Eddie breaks into the house and entices Louise with long shot possibilities of becoming rich. As Alvin enters and guns are pulled, someone accidentally shoots Louise in the neck leaving a scar. Louise becomes in cahoots with Eddie in his gambling schemes while Alvin is in prison. Eddie refers to Alvin as a “dicty sap” which insults his ambitions to move up the rungs of the caste system.

Alvin escapes prison by filing the bars in his cell and re-establishes himself as a music instructor with a false name. Alvin seems to be consistent in his role as an escapist; first striving to escape the ghetto through music and now escapes prison to re establish himself as respectable in society. Alvin falls in love with his student, Alice, but “lives a daily lie” because he has hidden the secrets of his past. Louise is involved with Alice’s father so Alvin meets her after dropping an urgent note to Alice’s father. Alice’s father unknowingly pairs the two together for a dance. Later that night, Louise makes advances on Alvin, threatening to expose him and he gives in for a moment but in a later scene Alvin rejects her and leaves. This scene stands in contrast to the multitude of times when Alvin saved her because this time it is Alvin throwing Louise to the ground. This has an element of symbolism in that he is no longer going to save her from the “gutter” or low class dragging her down. In distress, Louise kills herself after writing a revealing letter of repentance and apology. In it she confesses that it was really Eddie who shot her neck and he wouldn’t allow her to tell the truth during the trial.

Alvin feels compelled to let Alice and her family in on his secrets after hearing of Louise’s death and they forgive him. Alice’s father’s lament mirrors the earlier foreword, in blaming the environment and Louise’s lack of education, finishing with the statement: “our people have much to learn.” This seems to be a fitting end, however in that it shows how one can strive and have ambition like Alvin or be doomed to misery like Louise. The setting of her death is also worth noticing. A burned down candle is there to be noticed as representative of Louise’s failure in life to do anything of importance. Her choice to abandon her hope of rising above poverty that lied in Alvin led her to a life of low class depression and emptiness. There once was a girl who fought against men like Eddie and Spike with fire but in the end her weakness prevailed, extinguishing the flame, or the “lamp of knowledge” due to lack of “tender care.”