Where is the line between when it is acceptable to kill and when it is a crime. Under the law, a person can be thrown in jail for manslaughter or murder but if a person can prove that they had to kill another person in self defense, they can go free. Often, this choice is not clear cut. This sometimes murky division is seen in Colin Harrison's book The Finder. In this book we see some very obvious examples of clear cut murder but some have several other dimensions. A man, Victor, attacks a drugged man who is helpless to defend himself. Harrison writes, "Richie had never had a chance, his shirtless body still sprawled in the position of deep sleep, hands out, shoes off, his boxer shorts askew, belly soft, a tattooed lightning bolt adorning his hip bone. Next to him, the bedside table drawer had been yanked open. On the floor lay the bloody golf club, bent in the middle now" (157). This gruesome way of dying- beaten to death with a golf club, seems senseless and horrible. However, it is not as clear cut as it seems. The man who beat Richie to death was doing so in order to get revenge on him for sexually abusing his sister. Does this justify the death? Does anything ever justify a death? These are some of the main questions that run through the plot of the book.
Harrison writes about these murders without an extreme bias. We are somewhat led to believe a certain way but we are also indoctrinated by society to believe that some crimes are in fact justified. Frequently, the line between murder and self-defense is unrecognizably blurred. Ray fights with the same man that killed Richie in order to rescue Jin Li. The scene is described, "Victor howled and lunged blindly at Ray, his hands grabbing him by the throat, and the two men stumbled backward toward the tub- which is where Ray tripped, and as he fell he twisted sideways and victor sprawled awkwardly across the tub, sinking heavily into the lumpy mixture and simultaneously setting its contents on fire" (318). While it can be argued that Ray was only protecting himself and didn't directly kill Victor, it is also true that his actions led to Victor's death and without Ray, he would not have been killed. These are the questions we as a society must ask ourselves. When is ending a life justified? Where can we draw the line between murder and self-defense? and is there ever a time or a situation where it is good to end some one's life? These questions have been asked by many throughout history and will continue to be asked. They may, in fact, be impossible to ever answer
2 comments:
Well. in my opinion taking a life is never really justified. We can always jail them or something else... Preserve life at all costs is my motto. I remember that the reason Ray didn't want to be a cop was because he didn't want to kill someone. I don't think he actually did anything to kill Victor. It says he tripped, so it wasn't even his fault. All in all I think Ray had no direct effect on Victor's death.
By your logic, if I were to be attacked with a knife, then managed to kill my attacker, it would be my fault that the attacker died. Sure, if he had never met me he wouldn't have died at that specific moment, but I wasn't the one who set the chain of events in motion. He would have made the decision to attack me himself, therefore putting the blame of the death on himself.
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