Agatha Christie books brings up the problem of peoples morals, especially in the books ATTWN and MOTOE. The moral ambiguity presented in both books further shows that there are questionable areas in the justice system, and if the readers are left to question if whether or not the culprit was justified in what they did then, there must be some unreliable sections in the law. It’s made even harder to make it any clearer with Freud’s concepts on psychoanalysis, it questions the previously held assumptions on human nature, making people to acknowledge that they still hold some of their instinct back from primitive times.
ATTWN’s culprit’s actions can be classified into one of the biological drives that fuels a person’s instincts, Wargrave’s actions
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The insanity defence is a controversial aspect of law, and an argument has been made that some criminals would not have committed their crimes if they thought they wouldn’t get away with it by pleading insanity . He even admits that the murderer “is a dangerous and possibly insane criminal”, at that point Wargrave essentially admits that he is insane and is not sound of mind. This statement might be seen as Wargrave having fun playing with the victims, he is fully aware that he is the one doing the killings, and yet uses language that sends people into a panic. Wargrave uses “dangerous” without elaborating on it, this could lead people into over thinking what the criminal is capable of, dangerous is a common word for warning people for possible destructive happenings, yet it’s usually followed up by explaining on how it’s unsafe. Wargrave just follows it up with another extreme word “insane”, this would just further alarm people, as now all they know is that the murderer is seemingly capable of anything and nothing is off limits to them. Wargrave could be seen as not sane, allowing him certain freedom within the law. The flaws in the law become more apparent once this is suggested, the man who had managed to murder all the people on the island, could …show more content…
As Cassetti is presented as a man with no redeeming qualities, not a single passenger on board the express had a good thing to say about him. Throughout the book each of the passengers expresses their distaste for Cassetti, and that they “cannot regret that he is dead”, this suggests that everyone on the express believed that he got what he deserved and they are grateful that he is gone. MOTOE doesn’t want to question whether or not the victim deserved what they got like it does in ATTWN, it instead wants to question if the murderers were justified and morally correct in taking the law into their own hands. However, much like ATTWN, the murderer’s actions can be placed under Thanatos, as their “death instinct” is directed towards another person, taking the form of aggression and violence . Yet unlike ATTWN the murderers were not born with the desire to kill, instead they were driven to murder through the lack of justice they got through the law. Their actions can also be classed under Horkheimer’s classification of reasoning, subjective and objective. Subjective is having a calculating mentality, implied to be amoral, their primary concern is efficiency, such as Wargrave’s mentality. Objective is them establishing universal validity of end themselves, examples being freedom, justice, equality and happiness . The murders in MOTOE can be put under objective, they want to achieve justice, something the court would not grant them.
In “Invitation to a Murder” by Josh Pachter, situational irony is used an extremity of times. The first example comes from the title of the story. Eleanor Abbott pre-planned for there to be 12 renowned men in the criminal justice system invited to witness the death of her husband! Once they were there, she planned to blame them on his death! This is ironic since these men are busy fighting murder, and here they are about to be blamed for one! The following example comes in when the men come over to the Abbott household.
In The Murder of Helen Jewett, Patricia Cohen uses one of the most trivial murders during the 1800’s to illustrate the sexiest society accommodations to the privileged, hypocritical tunneled views toward sexual behavior, and the exploitation of legal codes, use of tabloid journalism, and politics. Taking the fact that woman was made from taking a rib from man was more than biblical knowledge, but incorporated into the male belief that a woman’s place is determined by the man. Helen had the proper rearing a maid servant, but how did she fall so far from grace. Judge Weston properly takes credit for rearing her with the proper strictness and education. Was Helen seduced at an early age and introduced to sexual perversions that were more persuasive that the bible belt life that the Weston’s tried to live? Was Helen simply a woman who knew how to use what she had to get what she wanted? Through personal correspondence, legal documentation, census reports, paintings, and newspapers we are able to make our own determinations. Cohen provides more than enough background and history to allow any one to make their own opinion how the murder of a woman could be turned into a side show at a circus.
...are confronted with the question of moral absolutes, we are forced to wonder when and to whom justice truly applies. Hopefully, we will look at our world and our ideas of right, wrong and retribution in different ways, ways that will enlighten and enrich our lives, and the those of the an audience of readers 2,000 years from now.
In Nathanial Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, the deceptive Roger Chillingworth could most certainly be considered a morally ambiguous character. Throughout the novel, Roger Chillingworth everlastingly remains misleading as to whether he lies on the side of good or evil. Even at the end of The Scarlet Letter, the knowledge of Roger Chillingworth is extremely nebulous. The mysterious Roger Chillingworth, although ultimately emanating to be evil, attests to be a challenge when determining his morality. Roger Chillingworth attempts to beguile us by enacting the role of a physician, and ensconces his relationship with Hester Prynne. He lives with Arthur Dimmesdale, vindicating that he is serving Arthur Dimmesdale a helpful medicine, while he is actually depleting the very life from his bones. Roger Chillingworth, therefore, achieves his moral ambiguity through deception, cleverness, and an unknown history.
letter *A* embroidered on her chest. The A served as a symbol of her crime, was
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.
In conclusion to the defending of Margaret Atwood scapegoating really is not the right way to experience success because you should not make someone else take the blame for what you have done you should take your punishment and move on with your life. Therefore in the “Crucible” and “Half-Hanged Mary” there happened to be a lot of scapegoating going on so that others could stay out of trouble which made people that did not do what they got scapegoated for to have to take the blame and get someone else's
For those that don’t know, the insanity plea, as defined by Cornell Law, is based on the fact that a person accused of a crime can acknowledge that he/she committed the crime, but argue that he/she is not responsible for it because of his or her mental illness, by pleading “not guilty by reason of insanity”. This first became a problem in 1843. Daniel M’Naughten was trialed for shooting the secretary of the Prime Minister in attempt to assassinate the Prime Minister himself. It was said that M’Naughten thought the Prime Minister was the person behind all his personal and financial problems. The jury ruled him “not guilty by reason of insanity”. The reason for the verdict was M’Naughten...
Sayres, William G. “Compounding the Crime: Ingratitude and the Murder Conviction of Justine Moritz in Frankenstein.” Sayres, "Compounding the Crime", knarf.english.upenn.edu/Articles/sayres.html.
Morals are principles which help people to behave rightly. Also, they need to protect the rules. However, in Agatha Christie’s novel, Murder on the Orient Express, the characters act dishonestly: twelve passengers on the Orient Express murder Cassetti, they lie to the Belgian private detective, Hercule Poirot and the protagonist overlooks the passengers. Agatha Christie wrote these intensions fairly. From Murder on the Orient Express, the readers can learn that some set of morals are endorsed.
In the eyes of the law, a defendant is legally insane if he or she is unable, because of a mental problem, to form a mens rea, a Latin term meaning a guilty mind.# Since the law only punishes people who are mentally responsible for their actions, most states allow juries to find a defendant not guilty if he or she was insane at the time a crime was committed. The insanity defense, states that at the time of the crime the defendant could not decide between right or wrong or could not keep from acting on their impulse, due to mental illness. Each state has its own definition of insanity, but most states fol...
The Trial is Kafka’s exploration of the most extreme consequences of denying one’s own guilt and thus one’s own humanity. In some senses, it serves as a warning, or a sort of parable of its own, and in others it is simply an expression of anguish. The story serves to warn against thinking so highly of oneself that we only interpret infractions of the outright law as guilt. 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."
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was first published in 1926, and is one of many of Christie’s Hercule Poirot Mystery novels. In this novel, we obtain a deeper understanding of the impact social standings has and the influence it has on how people perceive you. The mystery takes place in an era where social class was extremely divided, and it is shown throughout the novel how a character’s social class can hinder or help. Even when the characters are faced with a crime, and the person who did it is unknown, social class still plays a magnificent role in unraveling the explanation of who would have committed something as dreadful as murdering a man. The Murder of Roger
In this essay the main character from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevski, Rodion Raskolnikov, is broken apart to show how Psychoanalysis and Cognitive therapy deal with narcissistic clients. Cognitive therapy focuses on how the client categorizes experiences in his/her head leading them to have a unique set of ideals relating to the world.. This type of thinking will allows us to better understand why Raskolnikov, the main character of Crime and Punishment, views the people around him to be inferior in intellect. Psychoanalysis therapy’s main goal is to insure that patients become aware of themselves and their surroundings by digging deep into their unconscious mind. Both therapies work on making the client change their way of thinking by showing them how to think differently. These two therapies will be used to find a way to understand why Raskolnikov acts in impulsive ways causing others around him trouble.
The insanity defence is defined by the M’Naughten Rules2 which state that it must be proved that the defendant, at the time of the act, was under a defect of reason, derived from disease of the mind3 and that he wasn’t aware that what he was doing was wrong. Recently the definition of ‘disease of the mind’ has been modernised in “an impairment of mental functioning caused by medical condition”4.