The Principle of Perversity

The Principle of Perversity is Jacob Rose’s description of Hank Devereaux’s habit of thwarting expectations, sometimes at his own expense. In the confrontation over a possible promotion, the idea becomes more than a joke about Hank’s contrariness: it names a pattern that shapes how he handles power, friendship, and opportunity, while the circumstances of his refusal reveal that the pattern is not simple self-destruction.

Definition and Form

Jacob gives the principle a concise behavioral formula: “Fake left, go right. Fake right, go left. Keep everybody in suspense, right? What’s Hank going to do?” In his account, Hank’s defining move is not merely to oppose someone else. It is to remain unpredictable, even when the price of surprising others is turning against himself. Jacob presses the point to its harshest conclusion: “If you have to fuck yourself over to surprise them, so be it.” The principle describes a repeated direction of action, not a formal rule or theory: others cannot comfortably anticipate what Hank will choose, because he may reject the apparent advantage simply because it is the expected choice.

Jacob calls Hank “the physical embodiment of the perversity principle,” making the idea a judgment about character as well as conduct. His accusation carries the force of accumulated frustration. He says that friendship has kept him from voicing these thoughts for twenty years, and that finally releasing them feels gratifying. The long delay matters: the principle is presented not as a passing irritation with one decision but as Jacob’s explanation for a familiar, consequential pattern between friends.

The Deanship as a Test

The immediate test is Jacob’s offer to make Hank dean of liberal arts. Hank is genuinely tempted. Looking out the window, he imagines the two of them in power and recognizes that promotion would give him a wider arena in which to disrupt the English department. That fantasy makes his eventual refusal more pointed: he is not presented as incapable of seeing the attraction or the power the position would provide.

Jacob’s offer comes with costs. Marjory would leave to play golf, Rachel would become Jacob’s secretary, and the two men would arrange for Paul Rourke to become department chair so they could take turns abusing him. Hank thanks Jacob but declines. His explanation complicates the idea that he is simply choosing against his own interests: he concludes that appointing him would be the one move that would cost Jacob, more than Jacob could afford. Other decisions, including those concerning Orshee, Finny, and Billy Quigley, would be defensible to colleagues; appointing Hank would look like arrogance, defiance, and a plum bestowed on a friend. Hank says he cannot let Jacob do it.

Friendship, Accusation, and Consequence

Jacob does not accept the refusal as a prudent act of loyalty. He sees Hank as content to disrupt other people’s plans and asks what pleasure Hank gets from being a “fly in other people’s ointment.” His anger converts the abstract principle into a charge about its effects: Hank’s unpredictable choices are not private eccentricities when they frustrate a friend who has made a consequential offer. The scene leaves both readings in play. Hank turns down an opportunity that appeals to him, but he also identifies a real political cost to Jacob and refuses to make his friend bear it.

The confrontation is sharpened by contrast between Jacob’s rhetorical momentum and Hank’s physical distress. As Jacob rebukes him, Hank is overcome by nausea, tingling fingers, and blurred vision; he struggles through the office toward the nearby restroom, using chairs and doorframes for support. He does not stop Jacob’s outburst. When he reaches Marjory’s office, he asks her to get Jacob away from him, but Jacob continues, turning Hank’s refusal into one more example of the very perversity he is denouncing. The physical crisis does not explain Hank’s decision, but it makes the exchange a collision between Jacob’s forceful interpretation and Hank’s inability, in that moment, to answer it at length.

Narrative Significance

The principle gives the scene its central irony: Hank’s apparent refusal of advancement can look like a reflexive rejection of what he wants, yet his stated reason is that accepting would hurt Jacob. Jacob interprets the choice through the history of Hank’s contrariness; Hank’s own explanation presents it as a limit on what he is willing to take from a friend. The concept therefore remains deliberately unsettled. It captures the damage and suspense Jacob associates with Hank’s behavior without reducing the refusal to a single motive. By naming Hank’s habit just as a rare opportunity brings it into focus, Jacob turns a career decision into a test of whether friendship can distinguish principled restraint from self-defeating perversity.