I was just thinking about the 1986 movie “The Mission”. In the film, a tribe of South Americans, the Guarani, are being hunted by Portuguese slavers. At one point, in their effort to avoid discovery, they are depicted as killing infants who would not be quiet (and who thus would reveal their location to the Portuguese).
First, did I remember the scene correctly?
Second, is there any historical documentation of this sort of thing, or was is something made up in Hollywood?
…was it – it!! something made up in Hollywood? :smack:
I recall seeing much the same story line in an episode of M.A.S.H. That one, at least, was surely “made up in Hollywood”. And since that would have been 3 years or more before this movie, I suspect that the movie just copied this story line from M.A.S.H. Or from whomever they copied it from!
The ‘killing child to stop it form betraying the parents’ idea is old. In modern references it also turned up in the awful “Quiggly Down Under” with Tom Selleck in the late 80s. But it predates that by decades at least and probably centuries.
I first saw it as a hypothetical ethical dilemma in a book published in the late 60s with pioneers hiding from Indians and the decision had to be made whether to kill the child or let everyone including the child die at the hands of the Indians. I have no doubt that it has existed in various forms for far longer.
It is conceivable that similar situations have happened in the real world, but I doubt they would have been recorded.
In fact it was the final episode: Goodbye, Farewell and Amen.
See also the extraordinary story “The Shawl,” by Cynthia Ozick, which was published in The New Yorker in 1980, but written in 1977 according to this site.
I agree with Blake. It’s an obvious dramatic device, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find it in Greek mythology or something similarly old. It also must have happened some time in history.
In the literary sense, a writer has to be very careful when trying to use it. It’s one of those devices that so obviously pulls strings in the audience that it has to be done magnificently well to succeed. Ozick’s version is widely recognized as one of the best stories to appear in the 1980s (and maybe ever) and is well worth seeking out.
Wouldn’t it be possible to keep a baby quiet without killing it? For example hold its mouth. Wouldn’t it be able to breathe through the nose?
You can make a surprising amount of noise through your nose.
It’s also in the fairly recent movie “The Pianist.” Seems to be a fairly popular plot device.