1. In your opinion what is the most important theme in the book?
2. What crime did Cardinal commit?
3. Why does Edie cooperate with Eric?
4. Do you think Eric's past affected his future?
5. Why do you think the author made Cardinal's wife depressed?
6. Do you think the weather is important to the novel?
7. When the killers take their victims, where are the victims usually?
8. When Eric kills a victim, what do they call it? And why?
9. Why do you think Eric likes to calls him victims "guests"?
10. Do you think Cardinal should have confessed his guilt even though Delorme stopped him?
Friday 10 May 2013
Theme Summary-Kate
Theme Summary
Forty words for sorrow has many small themes that affect how the story unfolds.
Theme 1: The weather
The story takes place in Algonquin Bay during winter which is a fitting time of year because the story is very gruesome and cold. For example when Cardinal and the other policemen finally find Katie Pine after she had been gone since September 12, they found her body in a mine shaft in the middle of a frozen lake. Her body was mutilated and frozen. The freezing temperature of the lake and island added to how morbid Katie Pine's death was. The fact that the entire book's events take place in Canada during the winter is a theme directly related to the book because it adds to the cold and mysterious atmosphere of the book.
Theme 2: Love is blind
The murders in Forty Words For Sorrow are named Eric Fraser and Edith Soames. Eric is a someone who finds happiness and pleasure while torturing others. In other words, he is insane. However, he is able to alter Edie (or Edith) into believing what he is doing is alright. He is able to make her believe this because she is in love with him. Edie had very low self confidence in fact she wrote, "I am nothing. My life is nothing, i amount to a big fat zero." She wrote this 3 days before meeting Eric. After she met Eric she became blind to his faults. To anyone who witnessed his behaviour up close, it was obvious that he was crazy. He liked to video tape killing people. He called them "parties". Eric got Edie to help him find and kill his victims. Edie wasn't thrilled with it at first but she was just happy that Eric was happy. She would do whatever he told her to do. The sad part is though, that Eric had absolutely no feelings towards Edie at all. In the book he refers to Edie as, "A pet, some kind of reptile." He enjoyed having someone who worshiped him the way Edie did, and if he didn't find her attractive at least she would do anything and believe anything he said.
Theme 3: The past can come back to haunt you
John Cardinal, the main character in this book is a loving father, caring husband and talented detective. However, he made choices in his past that set him up for failure in the end. Delorme, his partner for the case, was inverstigating him the whole time they were working together because they thought that Cardinal was involved with Kyle Corbett who was a huge drug dealer. It turns out that he wasn't in fact the perpatrator in Kyle Corbett fiasco, it was sergeant Dyson. However, Cardinal did commit a crime when he was new cop, he was on a police raid for Rick Bouchard and Kiki, who were popular drug dealers. He found a hidden stash of over $200,000 and he kept the money. So, Cardinal sent a letter to the Chief saying he took the money but Delorme took it out of the mail telling him that he doesnt deserve to get fired. But, now that the drug dealers were finally released out of prison, they were after Cardinal to get the money back.
Another case where the past can come back to haunt you is with the murderer Eric. Since he was a young child he was in foster homes. He was ignored alot and he became fed up with it. So, he killed his foster sister's dog so he could comfort her and get her attention. It worked for a little while, but afterwards she just kept ignoring him. So, one night he snuck into her room and she say him, screamed and he was kicked out of his fourth foster home. Then, he was shipped off to different group homes and it resulted in him being sent to Juvenile Court for beating a smaller boy up with an electrical cord after the boy had made fun of him for wetting the bed. Afterwards, he was sent to Saint Bartholomew Training School in Deep River, where he lived with Christian Brothers until he was eighteen. Then, he moved to Toronto, where he had lots of boring jobs and no friends. So, he moved to Algonquin Bay.
So, Eric had a horrible past. Maybe if he hadn't gone through so many people and places who didn't care for him, he might've ended up alright in the end.
Forty words for sorrow has many small themes that affect how the story unfolds.
Theme 1: The weather
The story takes place in Algonquin Bay during winter which is a fitting time of year because the story is very gruesome and cold. For example when Cardinal and the other policemen finally find Katie Pine after she had been gone since September 12, they found her body in a mine shaft in the middle of a frozen lake. Her body was mutilated and frozen. The freezing temperature of the lake and island added to how morbid Katie Pine's death was. The fact that the entire book's events take place in Canada during the winter is a theme directly related to the book because it adds to the cold and mysterious atmosphere of the book.
Theme 2: Love is blind
The murders in Forty Words For Sorrow are named Eric Fraser and Edith Soames. Eric is a someone who finds happiness and pleasure while torturing others. In other words, he is insane. However, he is able to alter Edie (or Edith) into believing what he is doing is alright. He is able to make her believe this because she is in love with him. Edie had very low self confidence in fact she wrote, "I am nothing. My life is nothing, i amount to a big fat zero." She wrote this 3 days before meeting Eric. After she met Eric she became blind to his faults. To anyone who witnessed his behaviour up close, it was obvious that he was crazy. He liked to video tape killing people. He called them "parties". Eric got Edie to help him find and kill his victims. Edie wasn't thrilled with it at first but she was just happy that Eric was happy. She would do whatever he told her to do. The sad part is though, that Eric had absolutely no feelings towards Edie at all. In the book he refers to Edie as, "A pet, some kind of reptile." He enjoyed having someone who worshiped him the way Edie did, and if he didn't find her attractive at least she would do anything and believe anything he said.
Theme 3: The past can come back to haunt you
John Cardinal, the main character in this book is a loving father, caring husband and talented detective. However, he made choices in his past that set him up for failure in the end. Delorme, his partner for the case, was inverstigating him the whole time they were working together because they thought that Cardinal was involved with Kyle Corbett who was a huge drug dealer. It turns out that he wasn't in fact the perpatrator in Kyle Corbett fiasco, it was sergeant Dyson. However, Cardinal did commit a crime when he was new cop, he was on a police raid for Rick Bouchard and Kiki, who were popular drug dealers. He found a hidden stash of over $200,000 and he kept the money. So, Cardinal sent a letter to the Chief saying he took the money but Delorme took it out of the mail telling him that he doesnt deserve to get fired. But, now that the drug dealers were finally released out of prison, they were after Cardinal to get the money back.
Another case where the past can come back to haunt you is with the murderer Eric. Since he was a young child he was in foster homes. He was ignored alot and he became fed up with it. So, he killed his foster sister's dog so he could comfort her and get her attention. It worked for a little while, but afterwards she just kept ignoring him. So, one night he snuck into her room and she say him, screamed and he was kicked out of his fourth foster home. Then, he was shipped off to different group homes and it resulted in him being sent to Juvenile Court for beating a smaller boy up with an electrical cord after the boy had made fun of him for wetting the bed. Afterwards, he was sent to Saint Bartholomew Training School in Deep River, where he lived with Christian Brothers until he was eighteen. Then, he moved to Toronto, where he had lots of boring jobs and no friends. So, he moved to Algonquin Bay.
So, Eric had a horrible past. Maybe if he hadn't gone through so many people and places who didn't care for him, he might've ended up alright in the end.
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