Murder in the family: Biology, crime and the child in William March’s The Bad Seed

This article examines the intersections between biological discourses on crime and the representation of the criminal child in William March’s 1954 novel, The Bad Seed . By painting a violent picture of a child murderer driven to kill by her genetics, the novel invokes the debates of 1950s America in regard to biology and crime, on the one hand, and crime and gender roles, on the other. This article argues that March’s naturistic novel propagates biologism – attributing criminal behaviour to biological make-up – hence subverting the contemporary sociological understanding of crime and reverting to a more traditional biological outlook. This article situates the female child criminal in The Bad Seed against traditional biological theories of crime, which reveals the subversive potential and the transgressive position of March’s book. It is argued here that March’s novel contributes to criminological discourses in mid-twentieth-century America, especially regarding juvenile crime, and can be regarded as a reaction against mainstream sociological explanations of crime and the wider discourses on family, women and biology at that time.