*Spoilers are to be expected*

In the 2024 film Wicked Little Letters, the devoutly Christian Edith Swan, played by Olivia Colman, receives obscene and insulting epistles from an unknown sender. Her parents, who she still lives with, suspect the culprit is Edith’s new Irish neighbour, Rose Gooding, played by Jessie Buckley, because of the latter’s in-your-face uncouth behaviour and language. Her father, Edward Swan, played by Timothy Spall, takes the letters to the local police force, who proceed to arrest Rose.

Around halfway through the film it is revealed that Edith has been sending the letters not just to herself but a myriad of other people in the surrounding area. After Edith is convicted for her crimes, Rose asks why she sent all those letters and Edith replies that she doesn’t know. The question arises from this: What is it about Edith’s personality and upbringing that made her capable of composing these poison pen letters, what motivation compelled her and why is she oblivious to what that motivation was?

Although the film is set in Littlehampton after the First World War, the anonymous nature of the letters and the liberal use of profanity resonates with contemporary fears about modern day internet trolls. Trolling is a nebulous term covering everything from being disingenuous and feigning stupidity to antisocial behaviour like cyberbullying and abuse. Although Edith Swan’s actions are indirect, (sending offensive letters to herself and letting Rose take the blame,) they are a form of harassment and therefore fall towards the more harmful end of the spectrum.

People who engage in such behaviour have been found to have three overlapping characteristics referred to as the ‘Dark Triad’: Machiavellianism, psychopathy and narcissism. A fourth personality trait, sadism, is sometimes added to make a ‘Dark Tetrad’. To what extent does Edith exhibit these traits in the film?

Machiavellianism is characterized by interpersonal manipulation and moral indifference. Early in the film, Edith says she does not want to show the letters to the police until her parents persuade her that doing so is the best course of action. When it is revealed that Edith sent the letters, the context of the scene changes: it looks instead as though her reluctance to get the law involved has been a convincing performance through which she has manipulated both her parents and the police into believing that she is an innocent victim, an upstanding member of society who has been unfairly mistreated. This scheme also exposes her moral indifference to the effects of her actions as she does not care about the repercussions for Rose.

Machiavellianism is also exhibited by Edith’s father, who it is revealed called Child Protection Services on Rose so that her daughter, Nancy, played by Alisha Weir, would be taken away from her mother as revenge for being insulted by Rose at his birthday party. He also sent away Edith’s fiancé, Sidney, because he did not want Edith to leave the household. It is believed that Machiavellianism as a personality trait is heavily influenced by genetic factors, so it makes sense that Edith would also try and manipulate others.

Another trait of Machiavellianism, which is also a trait of psychopathy and narcissism, is a lack of remorse and empathy for other people. Edith does not care about the effect of her actions on Rose and the other hate mail recipients. She does, however, feel sorry for herself when her own reputation is ruined. She is also ecstatic to escape the clutches of her overbearing father, claiming she will not return to him when her stint in the slammer is over. She only cares about her own wellbeing, not the feelings of others.

This lack of empathy is only enhanced in the era of internet trolls. Edith Swan personally knew her targets, whereas cyberbullies do not have to know even the name of their victim: they can just log on and comment on a random person’s picture or status update. This does not mean that all online abusers target strangers, only that there is the means to do so. Inherent in these attacks is a dissociation not possible in earlier, less connected, golden days. One pregnant woman on Reddit said she was told her partner after she discovered he had been abusing people online that: “He did not see them as real people.”

Psychopathy is a complicated subject with countless and sometimes conflicting definitions, but the main three components are the lack of remorse and empathy, a boldness and disinhibition that defy social conventions and lead to antisocial behaviour, and the superficial appearance of being normal or even charming. At first glance it might seem as though this definition applies more readily to Rose than it does to Edith, but the crucial difference is the ability to feel remorse: Rose feels guilty about lying to Bill, played by Malachi Kirby, and her daughter about having the child out of wedlock in order to preserve her reputation, while Edith feels sorry for herself that she got caught.

As to the appearance of normalcy, Edith portrays herself as a very religious woman who is friends with the vicar, Father Ambrose, played by Tim Key, and at one point even prepares to give a reading at the church. She also seems to be so prim and proper that she tries to correct the behaviour of other people that she feels have failed to act in an appropriate manner.

Aside from lack of empathy, narcissism is characterised by exaggerated feelings of self-importance and an excessive need for admiration. When she is pretending that someone else sent the letters, she speculates that ‘they’re just jealous.’, which is a strange thing to be of a woman who still lives with her parents, does not have a job, does not have a partner, and whose only friends appear to be the people at her Christian woman’s whist night, none of whom appear to even like her. However, once you understand that she has those exaggerated feelings of self-importance, it makes a lot more sense.

As to the excessive need for admiration, Edith is particularly proud of her past glories, including having writing so impressive that it was used as the signage for a local business. She is also distraught to discover during one of the whist nights that there are many people who do not like her and could potentially hate her so much as to send abusive letters to her.

The final and most questionable part of the ‘Dark Tetrad’ is sadism, which is deriving pleasure from the suffering of other people. Although Edith can see the pain she is causing; watching Rose have her daughter taken away, almost be convicted of a crime she did not commit and outed as having had a child out of wedlock; she continues to write the letters with a mad grin on her face. The audience is inclined to believe that she is taking pleasure in the effects of her letters, but if this is the case then why, when confronted about it, does she not simply say she enjoyed it? It makes more sense that she is not sadistic and is genuinely unaware of her own motivation.

The response she gives has modern parallels with people asked about cyberbullying behaviour. The woman mentioned earlier who discovered that her partner was an abusive troll confronted him about his online actions:

“I asked him, flat out, if he was harassing and bullying people online. He said yes, and immediately withdrew. After telling him that I needed to know why — really why, not just “I don’t know”, he said he needed time to think about it.”

Both Edith Swan and the Redditor took part in anonymous bullying without knowing the reason themselves. The Redditor did eventually come up with a reason:

“He said he trolled/bullied people because it was an outlet for him to relieve stress.”

One answer in the case of Edith Swan can be found in her upbringing and her treatment at the hands of her father, which is combined with the effect of her environment as she never left home. At one point, Edith is ordered by her father to copy out 100 times the following biblical passage from Proverbs 3 11:12 as a punishment:

¹¹ My child, when the Lord corrects you, pay close attention and take it as a warning. ¹² The Lord corrects those he loves, as parents correct a child of whom they are proud.

While she is copying out these lines, she stealthily takes a break to compose the abusive letters. The parallel is drawn between how she is treated by her father and how she treats other people. Like the anonymous Redditor, she does it to relieve stress but does not know that is why she is doing it. It is only when she is in the middle of this act, as well as when she is shouting obscenities at Rose in the street, that she seems genuinely happy. Studies have found that swearing alleviates stress and pain and this is also the case with Edith. Before she is taken away in the police van, she curses at her father in a cathartic release from his coercive control, a control that was so overwhelming that she was unable to comprehend her own actions.

The major difference between the actions of Edith Swan and modern-day trolls is the potential scale: Edith only managed to send letters to the Littlehampton area, but now people can send mass insults to anywhere on Earth with an internet connection. Edith Swan was a precursor to a phenomenon that has spread malignantly throughout the globe and become a problem of such magnitude that people in the 1920s could not imagine it and people in the 2020s do not know where to start in combating it. Edith Swan was only one example and was able to be punished for her crimes because she was under the jurisdiction of local law enforcement, but she cannot be the paradigm of how to deal with the torrent of abuse sent by modern-day online trolls who might not even be in the same country, never mind the same town.