The Case For The Defence

Páginas: 2 (369 palabras) Publicado: 29 de mayo de 2012
The Case for the Defence is a short story written by Graham Greene. The story takes place in England around the time it was written, in the late 1930’s, when a conviction for murder carried a deathpenalty. We find ourselves in Central Criminal Court in London where the trial of the “Peckham murder” is being held. In this story we meet Mrs. Salmon who testifies against the defendant Mr.Adams. But it turns out he has a twin brother and the witnesses can not be sure of which one of them they saw. Mr. Adams is therefore aquitted, although one of them commited the murder. Outside of thecourtroom one of the two brothers is pushed by the crowd and hit by a bus. If it was the murderer or not we do not know. But what we do know, is that their might be a killer that Mrs. Salmon witnessedagainst on free foot.
The narrator of the story is most likely the prosecutor as he is in the courtroom, and talking to Mrs. Salmon , following her out after the trial and speaking of her as theideal witness. The narrator does not participate in the plot, but he or she is observing and refering from the events of the story in third person. By having a third person narrator the authorachieves an open story where you need to read between the lines, whereas an omniscient narrator to take an example, would know everything about the characters and in a way kill some of the tension in thestory.
Even though Mrs. Salmon is not really significant to the theme, she is important to the plot of the story and is the protagonist. Mrs. Salmon is a round character and is described like thisby the narrator: “She was the ideal witness, with her slight Scotch accent and her expression of honesty, care and kindness. (...) There was no malice in her.” The reason I think the author chose todescribe Mrs. Salmon like that, is to point out that she would tell the truth, that she would be a character with credibility. That way the reader can be sure that it really was Mr. Adams...
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