Something quite odd has been and continues to go on within the world of scholarly critical engagement with The Browning Version. What makes this something all the odder is that the very title of the play suggests that the book which is a gift at the center of the storyline strongly suggests that its significance should be examined above all other aspects. The title refers to a translation of the original Greek text of the Sophocles tragedy Agamemnon written and published by poet Robert Browning. The gift of this this particular book from a student to his teacher as he prepares to resign from his position and take a job at a lesser private school is fundamental to the “plot” as well as its themes. The overwhelming evidence to be gleaned from the text that is that this gift is not given out of sincerity, but is rather akin to an attempted bribe on the part of the student who has ruthlessly grasped onto a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take advantage of the emotional fragility of a man whose world we learn is crumbling down around him.
The strange thing is that within the body of critical engagement of the play exists a not-quite-universal, but still surprising large majority who insist that Taplow’s gift is intended to be viewed as a gesture of generosity that ultimately reveal his authentic feelings of respect and admiration regarding Andrew Crocker-Harris. Why this belief persists so strongly almost verges on inexplicable as it requires a complete shift in the reality of what Taplow has expressed on the subject of his view of the older man throughout. Even more to the point is that allowing for Taplow’s transformation from an insincere obsequious student willing to insinuate himself into the good graces of anyone who can further his academic career into basically decent kid undermines the entire point of his presence.
Millie Crocker-Harris is the wife of his teacher and she is having an affair with a younger teacher who is more masculine and comfortable with his students. The affair turns sour quite quickly when Millie reveals through her cruelty toward her husband that her soul is so black that no light could possibly escape it. Ultimately, her lover Frank is forced to openly admit what has become too impossible to deny: “She’s evil.” And so she is. But what would possibly be the point of creating a character as fundamentally repugnant and devoid of even the merest shred of human decency if those negative aspects were not balanced out by at least one very significant positive character trait? It seems creatively pointless to situate a one-dimensional villain into a situation where everybody else is operating on a much more complex level of humanity unless that singular dimensionality has a very precise and distinct point to it. All evidence suggests that in the case of Millie, there is very much a point.
It is important to point out that Taplow arrives with the Browning version of the translation as a gift to his teacher only after Andrew has revealed himself capable of deep emotions in front of his student for quite possibly the very first time. Earlier, in fact, Taplow—seeming to gauge that he has reached a more familiar state with the science teacher he has just flattered—says of Andrew that he’s not a sadist, but it might be preferable if he were since in that case, “at least it would show he had some feelings.” Right there in the first few minutes of the play, Taplow fully confesses his opinion that Andrew Crocker-Harris is less human than a sadist. And this is the young man whose gift of a book maybe an hour or so later is supposed to be seen as the generous act of a sincere young man expressing admiration for a mentor?
Taplow never mentions having a gift for the teacher before he brings it and he only brings it after learning that he has himself lost his own original verse translation he’d written many years ago. Taplow’s squirrely behavior in the minutes after handing his teacher the book points to the sort of nervousness of a person who has not yet mastered the art of emotional manipulation and fears he may be too obvious.
His own low self-esteem coerces Andrew into immediately questioning Taplow’s motives once the student has left. He begins pondering to Frank about the potential that Taplow is at that very moment making fun of his teacher’s overly emotional display at receiving the gift of the Browning translation. He does not go so far as to question the very basis of Taplow’s motive. Frank Hunter does, however, go so far as to shoot down Andrew’s concerns that he is being made the butt of a cruel joke somewhere by Taplow and his buddies. Both men seem to genuinely accept what so many critics have gone on to accept: the Browning version was given to the old man by Taplow out of genuinely sincere motivations. Only one person actually sees it for what it really is—or, at the very least, is willing to admit it honestly and openly.
Only the loving wife—the evil, unfaithful, cheating, spiteful, vengeful wife—who upon seeing the book and Taplow’s personally handwritten inscription inside seems to recognize that there may be more going on here than generosity or even pity. Despite Millie’s insight—engineered primarily for the sadistic joy of destroying the one moment of happiness her husband has likely enjoyed in years if not decades, admittedly—critics ever since the play’s premiere have chosen to ignore the single most important fact about people in real life who manifest such a high level of enjoyment in ripping at the fabric of happiness in others. The truthfulness of Millie’s version of events is simple and to the point, insisting that Taplow’s gesture was done if not entirely, then at least principally as a crass act of bribery for a better final grade. An act made all the more repulsive by virtue that it was concocted on the spot to play upon and take advantage of the fragile emotional state of his teacher. Millie’s version is completely at odds with the near-universal critical reading of Taplow’s motivations.
Remember Frank’s words, however. Millie is not just nasty or mean or even just a bitch, but something much more profound. She is downright malevolent and as such it should naturally be assumed that she has been gifted with an ability which often manifests itself in people like her in the real world: the capacity to see right through to the very same kind of darkness in others which resists all attempts to lighten her own soul. She is given perhaps the single most insightful line of dialogue in the entire play and it is a quick and comprehensive summation the fundamental character of young Mr. Taplow: detect “I don’t blame him for trying a few bobs’ worth of appeasement.” What Forrest Gump’s mother had to say about stupidity can be paraphrased to apply to Millie Crocker-Harris: evil is as evil does.
