FREUDIAN FINGERS and OT on DANIEL WEBSTER

Dan Shane danshane at bellsouth.net
Fri Nov 29 14:08:27 CET 2002


HARRY WROTE IN RESPONSE TO MY POST:

> > If
> > publishers wish to compile Don's stories and simply sell them as WALT
> > DISNEY'S DONALD DUCK volumes without any artist's name
> > attached to the books
> > (as sued to be the case in Disney comics), why don't they do that?
>
> I guess the word "sued" is a Freudian typo. 8-)

AND I CLARIFY:

It's more likely just a case of my dyslexic fingers transposing the letters
in the word "used" (as you already figured out).  I hate it when I mistype
and still produce a word that my spell-checker will skip over as acceptable.

HARRY CONCLUDES:

> --Harry.
> (Who never heard of a "Devil and Daniel Webster contract" before)

AND I EXPLAIN:

THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER is a great old short story and piece of
Americana written by Stephen Vincent Benét about a New England farmer who
sells his soul to the Devil for an improved economic state.  When Mister
Scratch comes to collect, the greatest legislator and orator in New
England's history, Daniel Webster, defends the duped farmer before a jury of
dead traitors who had supposedly also sold their souls in their past lives
(including the most infamous turncoat in history, Benedict Arnold).

I apologize for using such an obviously American reference, but this tale
has been one of the most important pieces of fiction to ever come from the
pen of a US author, and it had a profound influence on me.  It only became
more important when it was adapted into a movie starring Walter Huston as
Scratch (the Devil) and Edward Arnold as Daniel Webster.  The film's
original title was ALL THAT MONEY CAN BUY, and it may still be known that
way in Europe.  It is on my list of the 10 best movies of all time, and I
cannot recommend it highly enough.  I have often wondered how Don might work
some of its plot elements into a Duck story.  It is exceedingly dark, but
there is also a lot of humour in the tale (and its mood is strikingly
similar to CITIZEN KANE, which Don has easily incorporated into Scrooge's
life story).

Sorry to have gotten off topic (I'm always doing that, eh?), but I figured I
had better clean up my mess a little.  Anyway, now perhaps others will
understand that a DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER contract means selling your very
being to a person or organization, thus losing control of your name and
reputation.  If you're still unclear, by all means visit your local library
or check out the online version of the story at
http://www.law.utexas.edu/lpop/etext/devil/devil.htm.

Dan






More information about the DCML mailing list