Rogues, Rascals, And Scoundrels Analysis

Novels, The Fifth Child and A High Wind in Jamaica, both present children and adults as simultaneously perpetrators and victims. Individuals who carry out harmful immoral acts upon another individual are known in society as perpetrators, while on the other hand the individual who is the one being harmed because of a harmful immoral act is known as the victim. In most novels it is evidently seen which character is defined as the victim and which is defined as the perpetrator, however in some novels authors don’t make it so obvious. Due to the lines drawn between both perpetrators and victims being ambiguous, this paper will further analyze who the victims and perpetrators are in The Fifth Child and A High Wind in Jamaica.

The Rhetorical Precis In his novel, “The Revenant” (2002), Deputy Michael Punke argues the topic of humanity versus morality by addressing pain, perseverance, and revenge. He supports this argue by describing inhumane abandonment, then pain and hardship from the determination to survive, and lastly the pursuit of revenge from his deserter. His purpose is to alert the reader to their personal moral standards in order to alter their view about ethics. Punke’s audience likely consists of those interested in revenge, as is evident through his references to humanity and morality; he addresses readers with a tone that is grave and extreme.

Day’s, ‘The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender’, powerfully engages with the responder and effectively subverts the crime fiction genre to create a new era of crime fiction. Day critics modern society through the protagonistic voices of Claudia Valentine and Harry Lavender to challenge the audience's perception of what crime and criminality is. Day uses the subversion of female characters to challenge and question our perceptions of gender stereotypes. Day also effectively synthesises the insight that the dynamic personality of criminals, like Sydney, is evolving. Ultimately, “The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender” highlights these fundamental ideas to examine the impact of the narrative voices in order to gain insight into crime fiction and to address traditional conventions of modern society.

Incidents reads like a story of pursuit and evasion, one full of heroes and villains, of bright young men claiming the freedom to seek their fortunes and of desperate maidens trying to preserve their virtue, of mothers trying to protect their children and of the hardworking poor trying to survive the greed and exploitation of the powerful and wealthy. (163)

The story starts off with a family of 6 prepping for their trip to Florida. However, the Grandmother within the first couple of lines shows how against it she is because of the escaped convicts known as the misfits. The reader is told that the Misfit is an escaped convict that is known as a notorious killer and is somewhere in Florida. Looking at the Grandmothers character and reasons for bringing this up the externally makes the Grandmothers pleas seem reasonable and the thought process of the rest of her family to be less reasonable but when examined thoroughly and internally there is more fault to the Grandmothers character than is let on.

Though set in entirely dissimilar countries at different points in history, Margaret Atwood’s ‘Alias Grace’ and Hannah Kent’s ‘Burial Rites’ possess significant comparisons. Both for instance, are fictionalized historical novels following the tribulations of a female protagonist convicted of murder and both have been widely acclaimed for their incredible literary style which merges classic poetry, epigraphs, folklore and historical articles with fiction. The most striking parallel between each novel that can be drawn, however, is the way in which authors masterfully craft the stories of untrustworthy, cunning and deceptive criminals to elicit sympathy from their audiences. Readers of the novel and secondary characters alike are gradually pulled into sympathising with ambiguous and untrustworthy female leads, Grace Marks (Alias Grace) and Agnes Magnusdottir (Burial Rites). Despite the heavy suspicions of others and a lack of evidence to support their claims of innocence, these characters present artfully manipulated features of their defence stories to provoke empathy, sympathy and trust from those within the novel, and those reading it.

The crime is defined as the law-breaking cruel action committed by the criminals. These criminals usually have some deep trauma deep in their heart and the sudden bursting of all the negative sentiments will result in very devastating consequences of hurting other human beings. This essay will mainly compare Perry Smith in In Cold Blood and Misfit in A Good Man is hard to find, which is both the main character and the main criminal in the two crime stories. They have a lot of things in common as a criminal with minor differences. They a are both cynical to the society; They have both found themselves isolated from the society.

In his essay, Stephen D. Arata uses Cesare Lombroso’s “atavistic criminal” as a starting point for his analysis of Edward Hyde. According to Lombroso’s model, criminals are born not made, and can be identified by their physical deformities such as, "enormous jaws, high cheek bones, and prominent superciliary arches.”(233) They are “throwbacks to man’s savage past,” to use Arata’s words. (233) He that, when the novel was published, many readers saw the markers of the Lombrosan criminal born out in the physical description of Hyde; his being referred by Utterson as as “troglodytic” being the most clear-cut example. (240) Arata then ties the atavist description of Hyde in to the class discourse of the period, noting how it was customary for the lower classes to be associated with atavism and physical deformities.

Throughout the trials, the townspeople’s opinions began to get in the way of making accused people’s statements valid. Some accused confessed to save themselves (Hansen, 1969). Others gave their lives to save the innocent people accused of such a treacherous crime. Giles Corey, one of the people whose wife was accused, was pressed to death using stones because he would not tell the court anything to send his wife to death.

The opening establishes and embodies the world of the justice system, “the man’s world”, accompanied by its seriousness, organisation and harshness in its outlook on reality, the depiction of a typical arrest, identification and trial of a convicted criminal. However, this “world”, according to Wood is threatened, stating that it is somewhat disrupted by the protagonist’s “frivolousness, selfishness, and triviality” (272).

The number of accused began to grow and as they spent time in jail they “began to see confession as a way to avoid the gallows” (Douglas, 2009, para. 14). The initial naming of the easy targets changed into a form of redemption for past wrongs. Douglas notes the stark difference between the accused and the accusers. A common thread was that those less well-off would accuse those of a better

In his essay, Stephen D. Arata uses Cesare Lombroso’s atavistic-criminal model of the criminal as a starting point for his analysis of Edward Hyde. According to Lombroso’s model, criminals are born not made, and can be identified by their physical deformities, such as "enormous jaws, high cheek bones, and prominent superciliary arches. ”(233) Under this view, they are “throwbacks to man’s savage past.” (233)

Adapting to a dark, depraved world, the hard-boiled detective must to develop his own personal moral compass—— even when his actions must contradict the law. This is exemplified in Hammett’s short story, “The Gutting of Couffignal”, when the Continental Op offers a deal to Flippo, a lower level criminal, so that the Op can catch the mastermind behind the crime. He tells Flippo “I can give you freedom from Sam Quentin. The princess can give you a fat cut of the profits in a busted caper, with a good chance to get yourself hanged” (252). In this exchange, the Continental Op attempts to manipulate Flippo into helping him by offering him protection from the cops.

In the books The Trial by Franz Kafka and The Stranger by Albert Camus, the relationship between law, justice, and individual rights is strongly identified through personality, characteristics, and lack of identity. Kafka’s main character, K., is accused of a crime that is never specified. The process towards his conviction proves to be an array of predetermined steps that K. must blindly follow. Camus’ main character, Meursault, is guilty on a count of murder, but his conviction is heavily reliant on the judgement of his emotional and personal character rather than the crime itself. Kafka and Camus, as writers, were heavily shaped by their origins and statuses as influential writers of their time. Both books imply a judgement system where individual rights lacked, personality could convict, and law and justice seemed to be an opinion of those in charge.

1) Prescribed Text – The Book Thief a. Compose a summary/synopsis of the text (plot/themes/characters/key concerns). (100 words only)