The Death of Mrs. Sinico in "a Painful Case"

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Mrs. Sinico's character is not the main character in the story. We read the story mostly from the point of view, thoughts and inspirations of Mr. Duffy, thus he is the main source through which we can observe her character, along side with other sources, such as her family and after her death, from a newspaper article and witnesses: " The deceased had been in the habit of crossing the lines late at night from platform to platform...", "Captain Sinico, of Leoville, Sydney Parade, husband of the deceased, also gave evidence... They had been married for twenty-two years and had lived happily until about two years ago when his wife began to be rather intemperate in her habits"; "Miss Mary Sinico said that of late her mother had been in the habit of going out at night to buy spirits. She, witness, had often tried to reason with her mother and had induced her to join a League." (126). Hence, We can only guess about the cause of her death and the reasons behind it. We don't know if she committed suicide, or if her death was an accident. From the article describing her death, we learn that she was drinking and aimlessly wandering the city - but did she intentionally walk in front of the train? There is evidence that she knew the train was coming and deliberately let herself be hit, but it's also possible that she was just drunk and didn't know what was going on. The question of blame is constantly brought up in the article ("he did not think the railway officials were to blame", "exonerated Lennon from all blame", "No blame attached to anyone" [128]), indicating the importance of responsibility regarding her death.

In order to understand what led to her death, we first need to understand her character. As mentioned, most of the info...

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...ion is why. It is obvious throughout the story that she was a lonely person. We don't need Mr. Duffy at the end to tell us that. She is woman who has a husband who ignores her for the most part and her daughter doesn't seem to care enough about her to help her when she is having a crisis. We don't know what happened to her in the four years following hers and Mr. Duffy's break-up, but we can imagine her life hasn't changed for the better, since she had started drinking two years later. Those two years, as West and Hendricks mentioned, are proof that Mr. Duffy is not alone in blame. Of course, blame can be attached to her husband and daughter as well, since they were her family. Her suicide was probably a combination of all of those reasons together that drove her to death. Mr. Duffy's rejection was probably just the last straw in the lonely, sad life that she lived.

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