And Then There Were None

“I needed a tenth victim. I found him in a man named Morris. He was a shady little creature. Amongst other things he was a dope pedlar and he was responsible for inducing the daughter of friends of mine to take drugs. She committed suicide at the age of twenty-one” (267).

“And now to the actual mechanics of the crime of Indian Island. To acquire the island, using the man Morris to cover my tracks, was easy enough. He was an expert at that sort of thing. Tabulating the information I had collected about my prospective victims, I was able to concoct a suitable bait for each. None of my plans miscarried” (267).

“Morris was already accounted for. He suffered from indigestion. Before leaving London I gave him a capsule to take last thing at night which had, I said, done wonders for my own gastric juices. He accepted it unhesitatingly—the man was a slight hypochondriac. I had no fear that he would leave any compromising documents or memoranda behind. He was not that sort of man” ( ).

Character (in order of death) Crime Committed (note ch. and pp.) Manner of Death (note ch. and pp.) Poem Line to Coincide with Death Physical Effects of Death Psychology Morris

Character (in order of death) Crime Committed (note ch. and pp.) Manner of Death (note ch. and pp.) Poem Line to Coincide with Death Physical Effects of Death Psychology Morris (killed near the time Wargrave leaves for the island) He is a drug dealer. He convinced the daughter of a friend of Wargrave’s to take drugs. She committed suicide, and Wargrave holds him responsible. Morris takes a capsule meant to help with his indigestion. It is poisoned. N/AIt is not certain if his death is painless or quick, but it can be assumed that it occurs in his sleep and is probably designed to arouse no suspicion. Morris suspects nothing but does suffer from hypochondria. He seems to feel no guilt for his actions.

 Morris is not selected to go to the island.  He probably dies in his sleep.  He has no real mental anguish or suffering caused by Wargrave prior to Morris’s death.  Wargrave wrote, “Those whose guilt was the lightest should, I decided, pass out first, and not suffer the prolonged mental strain and fear that the more cold-blooded offenders were to suffer” (268).  What can be inferred from this?

 Wargrave personally knew Morris’s “victim.”  The victim was 21 years old and a drug addict.  Wargrave does blame Morris for getting the young woman started with her drug usage.  Though he is not invited to the island, he is still killed by Wargrave.  There is no evidence that Morris feels guilty about anything he has done—unless his hypochondria is somehow connected.

 How do you feel about what Morris does?  How responsible do you think he is for the young woman’s death?  What do you think of Wargrave’s opinion about Morris’s guilt?  What do you think about the timing and manner of his death (based on the information given)?

 Assertion: the topic sentence which includes a claim (or opinion)  Evidence: support to back-up your claim (quote, paraphrase, or summary)  Commentary: an explanation of how the evidence justifies the claim; elaborate  Structure: A-E-C-C-E-C-C-E-C-C-Clincher  AVOID PLOT SUMMARY!

Morris’s peaceful death is appropriate for the indirect murder that he has committed with no feelings of remorse. Morris probably dies fairly peacefully in his sleep since Wargrave gives him “a capsule to take last thing at night.” A quiet death matches Morris’s indirect murder through his introduction of drugs to a young woman. She chose to take the drugs, and she chose to commit suicide; however, neither would have happened without Morris’s involvement.

 Assertion: Morris’s peaceful death is appropriate for the indirect murder that he has committed with no feelings of remorse.  Evidence: Morris probably dies fairly peacefully in his sleep since Wargrave gives him “a capsule to take last thing at night.”  Commentary: A quiet death matches Morris’s indirect murder through his introduction of drugs to a young woman.  Commentary: She chose to take the drugs, and she chose to commit suicide; however, neither would have happened without Morris’s involvement.

Evidence: As a “dope pedlar,” Morris’s involvement makes him “responsible,” at least in part, for her death and probably for the drug addictions of many others. Commentary: Wargrave does not mention Morris’s feeling any remorse about the woman’s death, which may insinuate a lack of concern for his customers’ well being and callousness in his character. Commentary: Such a person, Wargrave feels, deserves no sympathy; Wargrave uses and disposes of him as Morris has done with his clients.

 Evidence: Morris’s casual treatment of his clients is paralleled in his casual treatment of drugs for himself, as he takes Wargrave’s capsule “unhesitatingly” ( ).  Commentary: Because of his easy acceptance, he seems to have little concern over the effects of drugs on the body.  Commentary: It is fitting that his willingness to dispense and consume drugs ultimately leads to his death.  Clincher: Morris, a drug dealer with little or no conscience, receives his due payment through an easy death at the hands of Wargrave.

Morris’s peaceful death is appropriate for the indirect murder that he has committed with no feelings of remorse. Morris probably dies fairly peacefully in his sleep since Wargrave gives him “a capsule to take last thing at night” (268). A quiet death matches Morris’s indirect murder through his introduction of drugs to a young woman. She chose to take the drugs, and she chose to commit suicide; however, neither would have happened without Morris’s involvement. As a “dope pedlar,” Morris’s involvement makes him “responsible,” at least in part, for her death and probably for the drug addictions of many others (267). Wargrave does not mention Morris’s feeling any remorse about the woman’s death, which may insinuate a lack of concern for his customers’ well being and callousness in his character. Such a person, Wargrave feels, deserves no sympathy; Wargrave uses and disposes of him as Morris has done with his clients. Morris’s casual treatment of his clients translates into Morris’s casual treatment of drugs for himself, as he takes Wargrave’s capsule “unhesitatingly” ( ). Because of his easy acceptance, he seems to have little concern over the effects of drugs on the body. It is fitting that the lack of concern he has for others ties to the lack of concern he has for himself and ultimately leads to his death. Morris, a drug dealer with little or no conscience, receives his due payment through an easy death at the hands of Wargrave.

Draft your own body paragraph for your essay assignment. Once you have completed your paragraph, you will peer edit a classmate’s paper to check for the elements of AEC. Remember that your paragraph should flow logically. Be sure that more commentary is present than evidence—I want to hear your voice.

 Online Writing Lab (OWL) at Purdue  747/02/ 747/02/  Unless you cite a source outside of the novel itself, a Works Cited is not required for this essay.

MLA format follows the author-page method of in-text citation. This means that the author's last name and the page number(s) from which the quotation or paraphrase is taken must appear in the text, and a complete reference should appear on your Works Cited page. The author's name may appear either in the sentence itself or in parentheses following the quotation or paraphrase, but the page number(s) should always appear in the parentheses, not in the text of your sentence. For example:  Wordsworth stated that Romantic poetry was marked by a "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (263).  Romantic poetry is characterized by the "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings" (Wordsworth 263).  Wordsworth extensively explored the role of emotion in the creative process (263).

Page numbers are always required, but additional citation information can help literary scholars, who may have a different edition of a classic work like Marx and Engels's The Communist Manifesto. In such cases, give the page number of your edition (making sure the edition is listed in your Works Cited page, of course) followed by a semicolon, and then the appropriate abbreviations for volume (vol.), book (bk.), part (pt.), chapter (ch.), section (sec.), or paragraph (par.). For example:  Marx and Engels described human history as marked by class struggles (79; ch. 1).

With more and more scholarly work being posted on the Internet, you may have to cite research you have completed in virtual environments. While many sources on the Internet should not be used for scholarly work (reference the OWL's Evaluating Sources of Information resource), some Web sources are perfectly acceptable for research. When creating in-text citations for electronic, film, or Internet sources, remember that your citation must reference the source in your Works Cited. Sometimes writers are confused with how to craft parenthetical citations for electronic sources because of the absence of page numbers, but often, these sorts of entries do not require any sort of parenthetical citation at all. For electronic and Internet sources, follow the following guidelines:  Include in the text the first item that appears in the Work Cited entry that corresponds to the citation (e.g. author name, article name, website name, film name).  You do not need to give paragraph numbers or page numbers based on your Web browser’s print preview function.  Unless you must list the Web site name in the signal phrase in order to get the reader to the appropriate entry, do not include URLs in-text. Only provide partial URLs such as when the name of the site includes, for example, a domain name, like CNN.com or Forbes.com as opposed to writing out or