.
The following is not a decisive thought, just an addition to Joe’s arguments about 1) Mark’s word usage and 2) the context, in which a word occurs.
1) Beyond the verse 1:41 Mark used the verb σπλαγχνίζομαι (splagchnizomai - moved with compassion/ filled with pity) three times and always in the grammar construction
verb + preposition “ἐπὶ” + object in accusative (“ἐπ'” and “ἐφ'” are forms of “ἐπὶ” before a rough or a smooth breathing)
Mark 6:34 he felt compassion for them (ἐσπλαγχνίσθη ἐπ' αὐτοὺς)
Mark 8:2 I feel compassion for the people (Σπλαγχνίζομαι ἐπὶ τὸν ὄχλον)
Mark 9:22 have compassion on us (σπλαγχνισθεὶς ἐφ’ ἡμᾶς)
Matthew used σπλαγχνίζομαι (splagchnizomai) five times, in two cases without preposition and object (18:27, 20:34) and in another case with the preposition “περὶ“ and the object in genitive (9:36). The two other verses are Markan material with the preposition “ἐπὶ”. Luke used the verb three times, in two cases without preposition and object (10:33, 15:20) and in one verse as Mark with the preposition “ἐπὶ”, but with the object in dative (7:13).
The use of σπλαγχνίζομαι (splagchnizomai) with the presposition “ἐπὶ” and an object in accusative seems therefore to be a typical and deliberate Markan word usage.
2) The word occurs in the verses 6:34 (feeding of the 5000), 8:2 (feeding of the 4000) and 9:22 (healing the demoniac boy) in stories which have some similar elements: Jesus, the disciples, a great crowd and a “failure” or misunderstanding of the disciples.
6:37 But he answered them, “You give them something to eat.” And they said to him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give it to them to eat?”
8:3 And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away.” 4 And his disciples answered him, “How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?”
9:17 And someone from the crowd answered him, “Teacher, I brought my son to you, for he has a spirit that makes him mute. 18 And whenever it seizes him, it throws him down, and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid. So I asked your disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.”
At first glance it seems that the first two stories have a completely different issue, but the Syrophoenician woman pericope teaches that the two things (giving the bread and casting out demons) are – perhaps in a mystical way – equivalents.
7:26 And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27 And he said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”
3) Naturally, the major variant in the mss for Mark 1:41 (σπλαγχνίζομαι without preposition and object) could be an exception, but it looks a bit suspicious to me that the word occurs in a different word usage and in a story without the elements mentioned above.
I tend to think that for Mark the opposite of compassion/pity is not anger, but the hardening of the heart.