“For a while,” reported Wall Street Journal sportswriter Jason Gay earlier this week about the winning quarterback in Sunday’s Super Bowl, “the world’s been chasing a Sam Darnold revenge saga, reminding him of all his dead ends and doubters.” Darnold, an uneven performer for four NFL franchises over the prior seven seasons, had been declared a possible “$100 million mistake” if not “a DISASTER!” when the Seahawks signed him back in March. Newly redeemed before more than a hundred million viewers, how would Darnold respond? “Loudly getting even is the currency of our time, of course,” observed Gay. “The preferred ritual is to scream victory, hog the moment, call out the haters and mythologize group success as some kind of personal drama. Win with class? Don’t be silly. Class is for suckers!” But Sam Darnold is a class act.
“Asked to talk about himself,” Gay wrote, “he quickly pivoted to talking about others—the people who’d coached him throughout his career, to his sturdy Seahawks offensive line, to the playmakers who habitually picked up the Seattle attack. Of course he raved about the Seahawks defense, which truly won Sunday’s game. Darnold hadn’t played as well as he wanted. ‘But our defense had our back,’ he said.”
The headline of Gay’s article, “Sam Darnold’s Quiet Super Bowl Revenge,” recalled for me Addie Bundren, the titular “I” in William Faulkner’s 1930 novel As I Lay Dying, whose insistence on being buried in a distant ancestral plot propels her family’s grueling odyssey through flood, fire, and other calamities. Not until the 40th of the book’s 59 chapters, when Addie finally speaks for herself—not quite “beyond the grave,” but beyond death, in transit in a ramshackle coffin—do we learn how thoroughly she resented her life and its unwelcome attendants: her neighbors, her children (all but one!), and her shiftless husband, Anse. Only then do we understand that this is not a novel about getting to the cemetery, but about getting even. “My revenge,” Addie says of Anse, “would be that he would never know I was taking revenge.” Through the 19 remaining chapters, she will not speak again. If the novel’s story were news, the headline might read, “Addie Bundren’s Quiet Mississippi Revenge,” but that’s where any resemblance to Gay’s article would end.
We conceive of vengeance too narrowly and negatively in American life—too much like Addie and too little like a classy self-effacing quarterback. Apparently not satisfied with avenging himself on his critics by thanking his coaches and teammates, Darnold thanked his parents, too. “They believed in me throughout my career,” he said. “Some people called me crazy for believing in myself so much. It was because of my parents.” In the Roman Republic, the word vindex described a legal protector or intercessor who could question the legitimacy of a fellow citizen’s arrest for unpaid debts. The related Latin verb vindico could mean “to defend” or “to liberate” just as readily as it could mean “to exact retribution.” Our word revenge traces its heritage to both of these ancient terms. The concept has always embodied two denotations.
Loudly getting even, no matter its currency in contemporary American life, is not the only kind of vengeance available to us. Our students at MICDS avenge themselves every day against setbacks not by “getting even” but by redoubling their efforts and trying again. They avenge themselves against self-doubt by advocating for their best interests with teachers, family, and friends. They avenge themselves against a troubled world by sustaining hope in their hearts for a brighter future.
“Living well is the best revenge,” as the English poet George Herbert knew nearly four centuries ago, and as we must remember today. Always reason, always compassion, always courage. May you revenge yourselves against negativity or adversity through love this Valentine’s Day. I wish you a very happy long weekend.
Jay Rainey
Head of School
This week’s addition to the “Refrains for Rams” playlist is Living Well Is The Best Revenge by REM (Apple Music / Spotify).