The ambiguity of justice is a common theme in the works “The Purloined Letter” and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Poe, A Study in Scarlet by Doyle, and The Unknown Weapon by Andrew Forester. The detectives in these stories solve crimes to seek justices for victims or against perpetrators; however they often pick crimes to solve based on their own personal agenda or to cater to their ego. The justices, whether served or not, meant something different in each of the five works. It can be debated in many of these stories whether a murder or crime actually takes place, as many of the deaths are accidental or a result of self-defense. It can also be argued that some of the victims were deserving and that justice was found in their deaths. Whatever justice is served, or not served, the resolution has a different impact on each of the works because of the debatable circumstances surrounding the crimes. This paper will explore each of the works and examine whether justice was served and what it means for …show more content…
In the end, however, the letter is recovered but this is not exactly justice as he has not paid for the crime he committed. He just no longer has the ability to commit the crime. The only justice that really could be served in this situation is if Minister D. never spoke of the letter again. If he went to jail over the crime then it would be all over the papers that the Queen had a scandal so the only justice that can be served in this situation is for Minister D. to keep it quiet. This story, even more than “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” is just a chance for Dupin to show off. He walks the reader through the mystery without giving them a chance to solve it. A small victory is won for the Queen, however, as Minister D. does not know that the letter has been taken back from him and so the Queen now has the upper
This examination will look at the short story “Killings” by Andre Dubus and the main characters in the story. The story begins on a warm August day with the burial of Matt and Ruth Fowler’s youngest son Frank. Frank’s age: “twenty-one years, eight months, and four days” (Dubus 107). Attending the funeral were Matt, his wife Ruth, their adult children and spouses. Matt’s family is extremely distraught over the murder of their youngest son/brother, in their own way. There are implications of wanting to kill Richard Strout, the guy accused of being the murderer: “I should kill him” (107), as stated after the service. This comment is considered a fore-shadowing of what is to come in the thought progression of Matt and Ruth.
If that does not occur to the reader as an issue than factoring in the main problem of the topic where innocent people die because of false accusation will. In addition, this book review will include a brief review of the qualifications of the authors, overview of the subject and the quality of the book, and as well as my own personal thoughts on the book. In the novel Actual Innocence: When Justice Goes Wrong and How to Make It Right authors Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld, and Jim Dwyer expose the flaws of the criminal justice system through case histories where innocent men were put behind bars and even on death row because of the miscarriages of justice. Initially, the text promotes and galvanizes progressive change in the legal
Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” is a short psychological thriller. The murder of Fortunato haunts Montresor so greatly that he feels the compulsion to tell the story some fifty years after the fact. He appears to be in the late stages of life desperately attempting to remove the stain of murder from his mind. That it is still so fresh and rich in specifics is proof that it has plagued him, “Perhaps the most chilling aspect of reading Poe’s ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ for the first time is not the gruesome tale that Montresor relates, but the sudden, unpredictable, understated revelation that the murder, recounted in its every lurid detail, occurred not yesterday or last week, but a full fifty years prior to the telling” (DiSanza).
Reading newspapers or watching TV at home, at least we find one article or news describing a killing, a shooting, or an armed robbery. With all these problems, we are in fear but cannot avoid hearing and dealing with them. They happen every day and some time justice system blunders and leads to wrongly convict people for what they do not commit. This is reality of wrecked system that is resulted by injustice and corruption. Ultimately, Errol Morris confirms this reality based on a true story of an innocent convicted Randal Adams for a criminal case by creating a film, The Thin Blue Line. David Harris, an important accuser, claims Adams was a murderer and shot Robert Wood, a Dallas police officer. With Morris’ suspicion of Adams’ innocence, he turns himself to be a detective movie director and investigates the criminal case that occurred in Dallas, Texas in 1976. His goal is to show that Adams was wrongly convicted and justice system was flawed. By using juxtaposition and recreations, Morris successfully contrasts Adams and Harris to show that Adams is innocent and Harris is guilty, intensifies distrust of the legality in Adams’ wrong conviction to prove a flawed legal system, and evinces the eye witnesses are discreditable.
Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most celebrated literary authors of all time, known for writing very suspenseful, dramatic short stories and a poet; is considered as being a part of the American Romantic Movement, and a lesser known opinion is he is regarded as the inventor of the detective-fiction genre. Most recognized for his mystery and macabre, a journey into the dark, ghastly stories of death, deception and revenge is what makes up his reputation. The short story under analysis is a part of his latter works; “The Cask of Amontillado”, a story of revenge takes readers into the mind of the murderer.
In Harry Mulisch’s novel The Assault, the author not only informs society of the variance in perception of good and evil, but also provides evidence on how important it is for an innocent person experiencing guilt to come to terms with their personal past. First, Mulisch uses the characters Takes, Coster, and Ploeg to express the differences in perspective on the night of the assault. Then he uses Anton to express how one cannot hide from the past because of their guilt. Both of these lessons are important to Mulisch and worth sharing with his readers.
Bowers, W, Pierce, G., and McDevitt, J.(1984), Legal Homicide: Death as Punishment in America, 1964-1982, 333
The promise of closure seems like an illusion more than a reality; the idea of it suffers from the assumption that the murder victims’ families’ desire that the offender be executed in order to feel liberated from grief and all the pain that the criminal has caused. According to Berns, closure is something many families of victims’ pursue, but do not often achieve and it has become a protruding cultural narrative for defining the needs of the victims’ and also the broader concept of justice. Those that are for capital punishment and those who are oppose it don’t really have a true definition for the word and argue whether it exists or not. There are many arguments on how to achieve c...
There is a man passed out at the base of the statue. This is using a
As a literal deathbed revelation, William Wilson begins the short story by informing the readers about the end of his own personal struggle by introducing and immediately acknowledging his guilt and inevitable death, directly foreshadowing the protagonist’s eventual downward spiral into vice. The exhortative and confession-like nature of the opening piece stems from the liberal use of the first person pronoun “I”, combined with legal and crime related jargon such as, “ crime”, “guilt”, and “victim” found on page 1. Poe infuses this meticulous word choice into the concretization of abstract ideas where the protagonist’s “virtue dropped bodily as a mantle” (Poe 1), leading him to cloak his “nakedness in triple guilt” (Poe 1). In these two examples, not only are virtue and guilt transformed into physical clothing that can be worn by the narrator, but the reader is also introduced to the protagonist’s propensity to externalize the internal, hinting at the inevitable conclusion and revelation that the second William Wilson is not truly a physical being, but the manifestation of something
In the year 2014, law enforcement in the U.S. estimated 1,165,383 violent crimes reported (“D2014VC”). Imagine all the people needed just to get to the bottom of these cases! There is an abundant amount of Americans solving mysteries every day to keep others safe. There are crimes being committed all around the U.S. at every second of the day. In John Grisham’s The Pelican Brief, he displays a firm relation between investigators and lawyers through the Criminal Justice System of acquiring suspects and evidence, indicated in the book with an exploration of the scandals of Supreme Court Justices Rosenberg and Jensen (Grisham).
Edgar Allen Poe’s tale of murder and revenge, “The Cask of Amontillado”, offers a unique perspective into the mind of a deranged murderer. The effectiveness of the story is largely due to its first person point of view, which allows the reader a deeper involvement into the thoughts and motivations of the protagonist, Montresor. The first person narration results in an unbalanced viewpoint on the central conflict of the story, man versus man, because the reader knows very little about the thoughts of the antagonist, Fortunato. The setting of “The Cask of Amontillado”, in the dark catacombs of Montresor’s wine cellar, contributes to the story’s theme that some people will go to great lengths to fanatically defend their honor.
In both of Edgar Allan Poe’s writings, “The Murders at the Rue Morgue” and “The Tell Tale Heart” as the reader I am able to identify possible roles of crime and comfort in each piece. As we discussed in lecture, crime can be breaking the law, an act against another that is hurtful and against human morals, punishable by law, victimizing and much more. In each reading we find our self deeply immersed in the story this gives me the reader a clearer understanding into each tragedy by having the opportunity to clearly define the role of crime and comfort in each reading.
Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” is a frightening and entertaining short story about the severe consequences that result from persistent mockery and an unforgiving heart. Poe’s excellent use of Gothicism within the story sets the perfect tone for a dark and sinister plot of murder to unfold. “The Cask of Amontillado” simply overflows with various themes and other literary elements that result from Poe’s Gothic style of writing. Of these various themes, one that tends to dominant the story as a whole is the theme of revenge, which Poe supports with his sophisticated use of direct and indirect factors, irony, and symbolism.
If we are to be truly innocent and humble beings, we must recognize our own innate guilt as human and accept it. If we do not, we will constantly be obsessed by our “state of apparent acquittals”. Kafka, Franz. A. The Trial. Trans.