T
ToeInTheWater
Guest
Just thought of another literary example to chew on here. If anyone hasn’t read Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None” (otherwise known as “Ten Little Indians”) this will be a spoiler, though I won’t name the murderer.
Basically, it’s the story of ten guests who are invited to, then marooned on an island by a vigilante who declares them guilty of murdering various people and proceeds to hunt them down and kill them. The vigilante murderer writes a confession that is later found, and in the confession the murderer notes that the people who were “saved” until the end to die (and therefore suffer more, from the fear that they will be killed) were those judged to be the most culpable.
One of the two people who survive almost until the end is an Englishman who goes to Africa and is judged guilty of the deaths of some “natives” when they all get lost in the jungle and he leaves them behind to die while he goes and saves himself. He has absolutely no remorse for this, and it seems this (plus the body count) is the reason he is judged as one of the most culpable.
The other is a woman who, while working as a governess (English version of live-in nanny)for a spoiled, rich boy, meets and falls in love with the boy’s uncle. He tells her he can’t marry her because he’s too poor. She realizes that if the boy dies, the man she loves will inherit his fortune. Now, they all go on vacation to the seashore, and the boy keeps asking her to let him “swim out to the rock”. At first she refuses, knowing the boy is a weak swimmer and if he tries to swim out that far, he will likely drown. But eventually she succumbs to temptation and lets the boy do that. Sure enough, the boy drowns, and his uncle inherits his fortune. But instead of marrying the governess, he breaks up with her, and calls her a “murderess” in a later conversation with the vigilante.
This woman also never shows any remorse for her actions, and indeed seems to spend most of the book pitying herself and seeing herself almost as a victim, because she was spurned by the man she loved. She is actually the last to die, and it seems the vigilante sees her as the most culpable killer. I don’t know if Christie agreed with that, and I’m not sure I do either. I always wondered if the vigilante assumed she just acted out of greed because she wanted the fortune, yet her inner dialogue never indicates she wanted the money, she just wanted to marry her lover. I don’t remember if her actions (or lack thereof) were premeditated, or she just stopped resisting her selfish impulses one fateful day. I wondered what other people thought.
Basically, it’s the story of ten guests who are invited to, then marooned on an island by a vigilante who declares them guilty of murdering various people and proceeds to hunt them down and kill them. The vigilante murderer writes a confession that is later found, and in the confession the murderer notes that the people who were “saved” until the end to die (and therefore suffer more, from the fear that they will be killed) were those judged to be the most culpable.
One of the two people who survive almost until the end is an Englishman who goes to Africa and is judged guilty of the deaths of some “natives” when they all get lost in the jungle and he leaves them behind to die while he goes and saves himself. He has absolutely no remorse for this, and it seems this (plus the body count) is the reason he is judged as one of the most culpable.
The other is a woman who, while working as a governess (English version of live-in nanny)for a spoiled, rich boy, meets and falls in love with the boy’s uncle. He tells her he can’t marry her because he’s too poor. She realizes that if the boy dies, the man she loves will inherit his fortune. Now, they all go on vacation to the seashore, and the boy keeps asking her to let him “swim out to the rock”. At first she refuses, knowing the boy is a weak swimmer and if he tries to swim out that far, he will likely drown. But eventually she succumbs to temptation and lets the boy do that. Sure enough, the boy drowns, and his uncle inherits his fortune. But instead of marrying the governess, he breaks up with her, and calls her a “murderess” in a later conversation with the vigilante.
This woman also never shows any remorse for her actions, and indeed seems to spend most of the book pitying herself and seeing herself almost as a victim, because she was spurned by the man she loved. She is actually the last to die, and it seems the vigilante sees her as the most culpable killer. I don’t know if Christie agreed with that, and I’m not sure I do either. I always wondered if the vigilante assumed she just acted out of greed because she wanted the fortune, yet her inner dialogue never indicates she wanted the money, she just wanted to marry her lover. I don’t remember if her actions (or lack thereof) were premeditated, or she just stopped resisting her selfish impulses one fateful day. I wondered what other people thought.