Analysis Of The Killing By Andre Dubis

From prehistory to 21st century, violence and warfare permeate human existence. Tribes, cities, and nations have pitted their youth against one another in hopes improving their position. However, these Soldiers regularly fall short of maximizing their killing potential. In the book On Killing, Dave Grossman scrupulously examines war throughout recent history; specifically the human element in killing. His thorough assessment of the psychological factors associated with homicide is vitally important to individuals who wish to successfully lead their Soldiers during and after combat. Its ultimate value clearly visible in light of four major facets: the background of the writer, the general points of the book, analysis of essential concepts, and the insight provided.

The way the plot of Killings by Andre Dubus is arranged changes how the reader sees the characters in the story. This plot starts out in the present, then goes into the past, then back to the present. There are two main characters, and three secondary characters in this story. The way the reader views all of these characters is affected by the plot arrangement. The two primary characters who are most important to the plot, and also most affected by the plot arrangement, are Matt Fowler and Richard Strout. Because the first thing the reader reads in the exposition of the story is “On the August morning when Matt Fowler buried his youngest son, Frank, who had lived for twenty-one years, eight months, and four days…” pg 93, and not Richard Strout’s backstory and reasoning for his actions, they are immediately persuaded by the author to feel sympathy towards Matt. The author needs the reader to feel this sympathy so that when Matt kills Strout at the climax of the plot, Matt is not viewed as the antagonist of the story, but rather as the protagonist. The author needs the reader to view Strout as the antagonist so that the reader does not dislike Matt, and so that the story is one of justified revenge and not just another murder. If the reader had been presented with the plot in chronological order, with Strout’s backstory and reasoning for killing Frank first, then the reader might almost feel bad for Strout. If seen like this, one might conclude that, while he did not take

The Man I Killed is the story of the man that Tim O’Brien killed. However, this story is not true. He later mentions that he did not in fact kill the man, yet he was present and that was enough. This story, according to him, is told to show the reader how he feels, because O’Brien feels as though the truth is that by doing nothing, he killed the man, so in his story, he does kill the man. Imagery is the biggest literary device seen in this story, but diction also helps make the story seem more true, it helps the reader to truly believe that O’Brien did in fact throw the grenade that killed the man. This story is told from O’Brien’s point of view, which would be first person, despite the fact that the word “I” is

There is no doubt in the readers minds that Strout is guilty of murdering Frank Fowler, but that does not change the overwhelming anguish and guilt that is felt by Matt after he shoots Strout. As Matt had led Strout through his house and into the bedroom, he could not help but notice the neatness of the house or the picture of Mary Ann and the boys on the wall down the hallway. Matt began to make a brief connection to the person who was standing before him; a connection that he had to dispose of quickly. After the murder, Matt is lying in bed thinking about Strout’s

The National Geographic film, A Portrait of a Killer, examines the types of stress that living beings can endure, and how it can thus affect the rest of their bodies. Severe chronic stress can lead even lead to the destruction of brain cells. Dr. Robert Sapolsky is a neurobiologist of Stanford University who has been researching stress for over thirty years. In order to study stress and its implications upon nonhumans, he went to Africa to study baboons. This species has only three hours of stress caused by eating, and the rest of their daily routine is consumed by about nine hours of free time. Much like Western society, baboons socially stress out one another, as they have social hierarchies to regulate how them interact with one another.

Matt Fowler is a store owner with some sort of prior education. He is a father of not only Frank, but Cathleen and Steve as well, and is married to Ruth. Frank was going to school to earn a degree during the time when he was viciously and senselessly killed by a man who is older, but definitely not wiser. Richard Strout, on the other hand, dropped out of school at UMass due to grades and is currently a bartender. His priorities weren’t as well laid-out as Frank’s were, and Matt appears to resent two main characters, Richard and Mary-Ann Strout. Matt resents Richard for not only taking away Frank’s chance to live his life the way he was meant to, but also resents Mary-Ann for getting involved with Frank, knowing that Richard has violent tendencies and would get jealous. Matt has changed after the murder of his son, and Richard and Mary-Ann are to blame.

After leaving Strout's car at an apartment building in Boston, they lead Strout to a pre-dug hole in a wooded area where Fowler kills him. “The gun kicked in Matt’s hand, and the explosion of the shot surrounded him…Richard Strout, squirming on his belly pushed himself towards the woods. Then Matt went to him and shot him once in the back of the head (106).”

With the name “Killings” Dubus has already started his statement about these specific murders. If he were to use a phrase such as murders for the title, there would be an instant empathy towards the victim. Although he wants you to feel a little empathy towards Frank, I believe Dubus’s main point was to show the futility of enacting revenge. Throughout the whole story there is a motif of revenge that is masked behind the word justice. Since the earliest days of written record, there has been a philosophy, which has no become just a proverb, which stated, “An eye for an eye.” The whole idea behind this philosophy was that whenever a crime was enacted, the exact same crime was to be enacted upon the guilty party. As in the title exampled, if person A poked out person B’s eye, person A would have his eye removed. That idea of revenge is prevalent in this story. Rather than let what society has deemed justice, take it’s course, Matt decided that he could not wait any longer. Together with his friend Willis Trottier, Matt thought out a well calculated plan for murder.

Plot is defined as, "the authors arrangement of incidents in a story it is the organizing principle that controls the controls the order of events (Meyer,64)." The element of plot is heavily relied on in the short story, "The Killings" by Andre Dubus. The plot which is completely made inside the imagination of an author (Meyer,64), gives the audience important insight to people, places, and events in the story (Meyer,64) . "The Killings" provides a somewhat conventional plot pattern, where the character is confronted with a problem and is then led into a climax, which late leads to the resolution of the story (Meyer,65). The conventional plot is easy to follow and serves as a basis for movies and other

Throughout our time in literature we have read poetry, short stories, and watched plays. As we did this we were able to break down the key components of each literature piece, by getting deep into the stories and poems and plays and finding the real meaning and background of them. We were able to figure out all the themes, plots , more on the character’s personalities. As we read these literature pieces i have noticed a lot of the works themes are the same. About love or death and racism. But all those themes are a real reality to today’s world.

The major theme of Andre Dubus’ Killings is how far someone would go for the person they love. It is important to note the title of the story is killings and not killers, for the reasoning that the story does not just focus on two deaths or two murderers but rather the death of marriage, friendship, youth, and overall, trust.

This can be thought of a symbol. Another symbol used is a wound on Matt's finger, which he sustained while fishing for lobsters then puts a Band-Aid on it, and which he finds healed when he examines it after murdering Richard. This scene was not in the short story, but it was significant in the film for the reason of showing how easy it was for such a small wound to heal. Probably the most significant symbol is during the same scene were Matt is wide awake, staring at the ceiling. In this moment the camera angle shoots a medium close-up of Matt’s face, it can be seen on his face expression that he is not relieved but yet sad and still in disbelief of what he did. The smoke rising from Ruth’s cigarette ashes, shows a allusion to the camera the smoke is coming from Matt’s chest. He thought killing Richard would help heal his void of losing his son, instead it did not and now he has to live with this burden for the rest of his life. In the light of the various symbolism through the film, the literary device of characters explicitly convey the story’s conflict-man vs.

Matt is a middle class man who becomes obsessed with the need to get revenge on his son’s death. His son Frank is killed by a man named Richard. He is the husband and dads father of the women his son is in love with. This is what leads Matt into killing someone he wants pay back for his son death. Matt kills because he loves.

Many would argue that he did nothing in the slightest bit that would make him deserve his untimely death. Another event in the novel that helps build this sympathy is the time when Chaney shot at Frank even though “[he] was not armed at that time” (14). Readers are able to grasp the fact that Frank, in no way, provoked Chaney. Instead, Frank was unjustly killed by a rifle in the hands of an angry drunken man who was about to make a fool of himself after losing his money. Even though Frank knew confronting Chaney might end in his demise (because he knew Chaney had a gun), Frank decided he would rather risk his life trying to prevent his friend from appearing foolish rather than live with himself knowing he could have done something to prevent the imprudent confrontation. Overall, the way the novel presents Frank plays an important role in how readers interpret the rest of the novel. Because readers know more about Frank’s past as a man of compassion, readers interpret Mattie’s quest to avenge Frank’s death as a journey of seeking justice for a man who did not deserve to die. However, the way viewers perceive Mattie’s adventure is greatly altered in the 2010 adaptation of this film by Ethan and Joel Coen.

Being the subject his stepfather’s violent physical abuse, Richard had acquired a violent nature early on in his life. He carried this violence from his childhood to his marriage with Shirley. Richard would abuse both his wife and her mother. The abuse his wife endured was both physical and mental, which would often include being raped at knife point up to several times in a day. Richard was also fond of kissing and fondling other women in front of Shirley, forcing her to watch. Their marriage was short lived and the two separated. Under his mother’s recommendation, Richard became a live-in babysitter for a 29-year-old woman, who was a bartender at his favorite local bar, Ginny’s. One month later, his wife filed for divorce. In January of 1966, the same month of the divorce, Richard stabbed another man at Ginny’s. The fight was brought about by his anger at the discovery of his ex-wife’s remarriage after only 2 days of the granted divorce. These events were just the beginning of his violent streaks and became the foundation to his ultimate crime that made him infamous.