Character Analysis
First Impressions Aren't Everything
If we said "Here's Little Bill" to you, who would you expect to meet? A cute little freckled kid wearing a beanie with a propeller on top of it? A Jack Russell terrier that can turn somersaults? Or a psychopathic control-freak of a small town sheriff?
Yup. Not all is what it seems in the universe of Unforgiven. The guy with the cutest name is, quite possibly, the most vicious dude in the movie.
But when we first meet Little Bill, he seems like a stern but effective lawman. After Delilah's face is cut up, his first instinct is to whip Quick Mike and Davey (the guys responsible for it).
Then he thinks twice and decides to slap a fine on them instead, relying on a technicality of sorts—the prostitutes have contracts with Skinny and are, essentially, Skinny's "property." A couple of things are revealed about Bill at this moment. He seems like the kind of guy that wants to avoid violence at all costs, and he seems to obey the letter (if not the spirit) of the law.
Basically, he seems like a raging misogynist…but he also seems like a levelheaded, cool customer.
Live Wire
And when English Bob shows up in town, Bill calmly and carefully disarms him. He speaks to him in a convivial, gentle tone, explaining the rules and regulations of the town and why it's necessary to take his weapons. He almost purrs his words.
But then, once English Bob is disarmed, Little Bill punches him to the ground and starts beating him. He literally kicks him when he's down, while explaining that he's doing much more than just kicking him:
LITTLE BILL: I guess you think I'm kicking you Bob. It ain't so. What I'm doing is talking to you…talking to all them villains down there in Kansas, talking to all them villains in Missouri, and all those villains down in Cheyenne. I'm telling them there ain't no whores' gold. Even if there was…they wouldn't want to come looking for it anyhow.
Whoa there. What happened to mild-mannered Little Bill?
The thing is, that mild-manned Little Bill didn't exactly ever exist. Instead, he was held in check. As long as Little Bill could exert total control, he was calm. But once people start challenging him, his psychopath flag starts to fly.
Bill can go from being charming, pleasant, even instructive to cold, scary, and violent within a space of about two seconds. This is nowhere better on display than during his first conversation with Beauchamp in the sheriff's office, where Bill encourages Beauchamp to point a gun at him. While Bill is trying to prove a point about the difficulty of using a gun, shades of the violent, unhinged man beneath are clearly on display:
LITTLE BILL: That's why there's so few dangerous men around like Old Bob, like me. It ain't so easy to shoot a man, anyhow, you know, especially if the son of a b**** is shooting back at you.
He enjoys terrifying Beauchamp. And he also enjoys telling a captive audience that he's a "dangerous man."
Making Up For…Erm…Inadequacies
We think the real source of Little Bill's violence isn't a desire to root out violence or to settle old scores (with English Bob, for example) but some deep, hankering sense of inadequacy that is never overtly expressed.
But it is hinted at.
Remember when Little Bill tells Beauchamp that "Two Gun Corcoran" was named "Two Gun" not because he had two pistols, but because his penis was longer than a single pistol barrel?
Well, we have a little theory that more than one nickname in Unforgiven is, erm, size-based. After all, Little Bill is a pretty tall dude—his nickname clearly has nothing to do with his height. And as we see with Quick Mike, anger and smaller-than-average penises go together (in the world of Unforgiven) like biscuits and gravy.
But even if we've been reading a wee too much Freud and Little Bill's nickname could just have easily have been "Tall" or "Hefty" we still think that Little Bill's psychopathic rage could have something to do with a sense of being a less-than-adequate man.
Check out Bill's carpentry skills—or rather lack thereof. They're mentioned several times, most notably when it's raining and all of Bill's pots and pans are being used to catch rainwater from various roof leaks. Carpentry was seen as being an invaluable man's skill in the West—and Bill definitely lacks this skill. Maybe it's a sense of incompetence that prompts him to such horrific displays of violence.
Or hey: maybe he's just a psycho.
Little Bill's Timeline