Revised Endings: Difference Between Murder In The Real World

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The short story, “Revised Endings” by Jan Burke, follows a detective fiction author as she argues with her new editor on the best way to end her new novel. “Revised Endings” works to compare and contrast the difference between murder in the fictional world and in the real world. It also speaks on the morality of the characters who commit or consider committing murder.
The protagonist, Harriet Bently was the author of a series of detective fiction novels. In the novels that she wrote, Harriet’s main character, Lord Harold Wiggins, believed that when he killed, it was moral because he was murdering someone who committed a terrible crime. “His trademark was to effect justice without costing the English taxpayers farthing for an imprisonment …show more content…

Kitty made Harriet rewrite the ending of her novel five times, and when she told Harriet to rewrite, she did so using scathing remarks and nasty comments. Because Harriet was so frustrated, she decided that she was going to kill Kitty at an awards banquet that was coming up in New York. Harriet planned this real life murder in the same way that she planned the murders in her novels: through research. “Harriet became quite delighted at the prospect. She did not doubt that she would be able to kill. After all, she had already murdered over thirty characters. Among those thirty characters were a great many individuals she liked better than Kitty Craig” (202). When she first decides to kill Kitty, Harriet is delighted by the prospect. She even compares it to her writing, when Lord Wiggins murders. However, it seems as though Harriet does not realize that killing a person in real life is much different than writing off a character in a book. Is Harriet a moral character if she is planning a murder? Can she be? Throughout this story, Harriet is able to question her morals. Harriet was prepared emotionally and physically for the murder by the time she landed in New York. However, when she witnessed a woman get hit by a car and die, she changed her mind. When she saw death up close, she realized how permanent it is, and because of her morals, she realizes that she wouldn’t be able to follow through with her plan of taking Kitty’s

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