by david soryal
introduction
When I was starting to take this class, I was expected to learn and grow as a reader. I ultimately wanted to do so, as I feel that it as the most respectful concept as a student. I was looking to become a true reader and professional inorder to achieve my greatness. In the beginning of the semester, I was asked to pick a book for our class assignments. I was looking for a mystery book due to its engaging and interesting nature. I wanted to find a book that was not based on a movie or has nothing to do with a Movie. I never knew what it was, but I had to pick a book for the sake of my assignments. I then chose “The Murder Game” by Carrie Doyle. I did not regret it ,even though the writing style is plain. As I read the book, I was engaged in what will happen next, The Who, what, when, where, why and how.
There were a few books I have read this semester, “the Murder Game” was one that I truly enjoyed as it was like a roller coaster with a lot of excitement. I am excited and interested to read the book again. I had to Learn the methods to get the point of how o read as a reader.
Part 1: reading for
The Murder Game, by Carrie Doyle is a young adult novel about a young man, Luke, who uses his skills developed as a child who escaped being kidnapped to discover the identity of a murdurer who is terorizing his school. Ultimately justice is done and the innocent are proven to be such.
According to McKee’s “Structure and Meaning, “the controlling idea shapes the writer’s strategic choices” it’s more of roller coaster going back and fourth with the counter idea throughout the entire book, but it shows itself the most on a specific spot. The controlling idea we have chosen is the last act climax. It’s like a roller coaster going up, then down and then up. In the book, the last act climax happens in the end of the book. “Luke tried to move, but discovered that his hands were tied behind his back and his feet were tied together.”(342-343) “Luke jiggled his body and felt something against his butt.”(344) then it goes, “Broken! Yes, he had freed one hand! He immediately ripped off the tape that covered his mouth.”(346) “Luke, in turn, stood up and grabbed the knife from his pocket.”(357) “Luke held iup the knife. “You know I am not afraid to use this.”(358)”mr. Crawford Is the real murder.”(359)
This deceives the last act climax. As there is some excitement in this part.
“Luke tried to move, but discovered that his hands were tied behind his back and his feet were tied together.”(+)
“Luke jiggled his body and felt something against his butt.”(-)
then it goes, “Broken! Yes, he had freed one hand! He immediately ripped off the tape that covered his mouth.”(-)
“Luke, in turn, stood up and grabbed the knife from his pocket.”(+)
“Luke held up the knife. “You know I am not afraid to use this.”(-)
”mr. Crawford Is the real murder.”(+)
Part 2: form and genre
Because of the genre, we hypothesize throughout the book: who we think is guilty, who’s innocent, who is suspicious. The text uses this knowledge to divert our attention away from the actual murderer, Mr.Crawford. Mr.Crawford is portrayed as just a laid back teacher who cares about Luke and his friends, while nearly every other character is considered as a suspect at least once. The genre presents a predefined structure. We follow clues to suspects, and each one is carefully considered/ruled out. When Luke finally figures it out, he’s in more danger than he has been the whole book. Luke is the typical hero. Gallop mentions, “A student trained to read would be more likely to read what she actually wrote.” (9)
Part 3: intertextual codes
In The Murder Game, written by Carrie Doyle, Luke Chase becomes wrapped up in a murder mystery involving one of the teachers at his Connecticut boarding school, St. Benedict’s. Luke and his roommate Oscar, along with their friends Pippa and Kelsey, sneak out of their rooms one night to hang out in the woods. But the next day, when Mrs. Heckler turns up dead near that same spot in the woods, they find themselves caught in the web of this mysterious crime. When the faculty begins to suspect that Oscar might be the murderer, Luke sets out to clear his best friend’s name. While secretly investigating, Luke faces his fair share of roadblocks, all the while feeling like someone might be watching him. Luke is met with lots of opposition from people that want him to stay out of the investigation. However, Luke’s ability to stick to his values is what eventually allows him to convict a member of the faculty, Mr. Crawford, as the killer, and allow justice to prevail.
One of the most prevalent controlling values in this story is: Taking it upon yourself to discover the truth will allow justice to prevail. This is the value that keeps Luke motivated throughout the story. When Oscar gets sent home from school after falling under suspicion, he asks Luke to figure out the truth because he doesn’t trust the police to do it.
“You saved yourself once, and it was a goddamn miracle. I need you to do it again. For me. My life depends on it.” (185)
Luke couldn’t let it happen. He would clear Oscar’s name. He owed it to him, and he knew Oscar would do the same for him. (187)
Luke is accepting the responsibility of solving this case because he doesn’t trust the systems in place to do their job. In this way, he is taking on the controlling value.
Luke repeats this sentiment when he is in the headmaster’s office talking about Oscar’s innocence.
“I know firsthand that leaving investigations up to the police, or the FBI for that matter, is useless,” said Luke harshly. (191)
Luke stood up. “With all due respect, sir, I’ve learned that the only person I can have faith in is myself.” (191).
This further showcases the controlling value of taking it upon yourself to find the truth. Luke’s belief in this idea is largely due to a past experience he had in which he was kidnapped and had to escape. Luke is often referred to as “The Kidnapped Kid” because he was once kidnapped and held for ransom in a cabin in the woods. After a few days, Luke was able to escape the cabin and make it out of the woods to find rescue. However, because he did it on his own, without the help of the police, he doesn’t have much faith in them.
The opposing controlling value would be: You should stay out of situations that don’t involve you because they might bring danger. This opposing controlling value is represented by many of the faculty members at St. Benedict’s. One of these characters is Headmaster Thompson. When Luke is talking to the headmaster in his office, he urges Luke to stop trying to do his own investigation:
The headmaster placed both of his hands on the table and looked at Luke carefully.
“Luke, I know you want to help your friend, but this is not an episode of a television show that can be solved by a high school student. You have to trust our criminal justice system. Don’t worry; the police are looking at everything.” (190)
The headmaster tells Luke to leave it up to the police in order to keep him out of danger. By acting this way, he represents the opposing controlling value.
Towards the end of the book, Luke receives an ominous note in his mailbox urging him to stop meddling:
He pulled it out and saw that it wasn’t a package form. It was an index card. There, scrawled in black ink, was a message: You are playing a dangerous game. You think you know better than everyone else. This will end badly for you. Watch your back. (290)
The message conveyed by this note represents the opposing controlling value because it warns Luke that he will be in danger if he continues to meddle in this investigation. In contrast to the headmaster’s warnings, which came out of concern for Luke, this note represents more of a threatening force against him.
Another controlling value in this story is: Lying or withholding the truth, in certain situations, must be done for the greater good. This controlling value is shown through Luke’s interactions with Oscar and Mr. Tadeckis. Throughout the story, Luke becomes more and more frustrated with Oscar because he feels like Oscar is withholding information and not being totally honest with him. However, in the end he discovers that Oscar was only leaving him in the dark in order to protect Luke and himself, as well as to keep from interfering with the investigation.
“We agreed that we would have to make people believe he had been suspended. It was for his own protection,” said the headmaster.
“So that’s why he couldn’t talk to me! He wasn’t allowed to tell me anything,” said Luke. (364)
Luke realizes that Oscar’s intentions were pure, even if he had to lie to Luke in the process. This is an example of the controlling value because Oscar lied for the greater good of the situation.
Mr. Tadeckis has many ominous interactions with Luke throughout the story. He often tries to lead Luke on the right path in solving the murder, while still remaining vague and refusing to do the work for him. At first, this strikes Luke as strange because he can’t understand why Mr. Tedeckis wouldn’t just divulge all the information he knows. He eventually discovers that Mr. Tedeckis had an ulterior motive all along.
Mr. Tadeckis straightened upright like a soldier. “Luke, I am a survival instructor.”
“I didn’t think I needed to prove myself again.”
“Of course you did. You were brainwashed into believing your first escape was just luck. You refused to acknowledge your heroics. Now you can’t deny them. You can now know that you are truly special.” (368)
Mr. Tadeckis’ motive was to get Luke to trust his own abilities. He knew that Luke was capable of solving this crime, and that, in doing so, he would regain the confidence he lost after being kidnapped. He wasn’t fully truthful with Luke, but he had Luke’s best intentions at heart.
The opposing controlling value would be: Lying or withholding the truth has dangerous consequences. Many characters in this book act secretively or present themselves dishonestly. The following quote lays out some of their indiscretions.
”The victim herself, one Joanna Heckler, was a loose woman. Immoral. Broke up marriages, cheated, manipulated. Then there is Dean Heckler. I have no love lost for Dean Heckler. He’s a pompous, arrogant bore who thinks he is better than everyone. He still has his ex-wife, the demure little librarian Mary, do his bidding, perhaps spying for him. The boyfriend – Joanna’s lover’s name withheld – he was knowingly committing a mortal sin. Finally, there are the four of you: Oscar, Kelsey, Pippa, and Mr. Goody Two-shoes himself, the hero of St. Benedict’s, Luke Chase. You had broken a major school rule as stated in the St. Benedict’s handbook, on page seventy-six, ‘no one is to leave the dormitory after hours.’” (201)
“There are consequences,” said Mr. Tadeckis definitively. (201)
These quotes from Mr. Tadeckis lays out the dishonest behavior of many characters. Some of them have already faced the consequences for their actions, such as Joanna Heckler, who was murdered, and Oscar, who fell under suspicion for the crime. The viewpoint that their dishonest actions led to these consequences is represented here.
It was scary and worrisome at the sametime. It was like, oh my gosh, I am scared because I am in trouble. It was like wanting to find out immediately who was the murder. The reading style itself was kind of not interesting due to the broad appeal it has on what the story is about. It was easy to get a grasp on how it feels mimetically, if it was something that I would feel and experience in real life, if what happened in the story would happen to me in real life. It was easier to understand and resist as a reader than to be scared as this is not happening in real life.
As a whole, we are reading The Murder Game for a intresting mystery novel that We did not understand in the beginning. But as we began to read further more till the end, we tended to understand exactly what was going on, what was the answer to who was the mastermind behind this mess. Also during the story, we began to experience the fear and worry of trouble in the murdercase. It was an experience like what would happen in real life, not just what I see but how I also feel. We would keep reading the book to find out the answer “who” was the murder, what was his intention, why would he do that? These are all answers that get interesting as we read more and more of it. We also looked at the end of the book, the main part of the last act climax, which was so over the top and entertaining to enjoy at its best.
When figuring out the understanding of the text, we begin to ask questions, figuring out the clues, understanding our feelings and thoughts of our experiences is dividing one self from the fear and troublesome of this story and understanding the details. We then wanted to know the real last act climax, as it was in the middle of the ending. In Robert Mckee’s Structure and Meaning, explains the method in which you can exactly do the same, decide The controling and counter idea in between the story. It’s like a Roller coaster going up and then down.
Chosen that The Murder Game is controled by the idea that memitric method is the method in which I feel that i have a understanding of what i would experience in real life from the story itself. The ideas of Fear and asking questions, what will happen next? Who is the real killer? What is the character going to do next? Will that character win? These are the Wondering questions that a reader wants to understand more as he or she gets engaged in the story. Mckee states that “ A Premise However, Unlike a controlling idea, is rarely a closed statement. More likely, it’s an open-ended question: What would happen if…? What would happen if a shark swam into a beach resort and devoured a vacationer? Jaws. What would happen if a wife walked out on her husband and child?” (112) this is something a reader would be engaged in as he or she has the curosity of wanting to know more as he or she reads. When we get into the second chapter, these hypothis start. It gets interesting, as there are parts that get a reader shocked. In the Murder Game”, it begins with, “
For a story to be intresting, There needs to be a counter idea in order to introduce the problem. In Mckee”s Structure and meaning, He states, “The positive and negative asertions of the same idea contest back and forth through the film, building in an intensity, until a crisis they collide head-on in a last impasse.”(119) Therefore we choose that our counter idea attached with controlling idea that all of our lives have understanding and value in one’s way of experience. At the same time, a character’s role deals with some kind of feeling when they dont expect things that will happen in front of them. Their life is more of getting yourself out rather than knowing where you are. It’s hard for Luke to see where he is excatly, as he is in darkness. It’s rising action at its best.
In the book, “Luke!” I’ve been waiting for you.”(66) “luke, could you please follow me? We’d like a word,” said Mr.P.”(68) Luke surveyed the room nervously.”(68) “The chief cleared his throat.”(70) “let’s talk about your roomate,” “the chief said, “oscar weymouth. We found his student ID card in a very unusual place last night”(71). “Im certain I didn’t see him leave.”(71) Luke introduced us to a troubled and innocent character, trying to get his trouble and worries relieved so he can move on and not deal with these problems. Luke is also trying to prove his innocence as he is pushing himself to prove that he is one. The headmaster and the other authorities do not trust him as luke keeps his worries and troubles. Later on in the book, Luke finds out that Mr. Crawford is the suspect in the book.
Part 4: Rhetoric of narrative
Murder mystery novels, like The Murder Game by Carrie Doyle, have a fascinating relationship with their audience. While every writer has to anticipate their hypothetical, or authorial, audience, murder mysteries have to outsmart theirs. If the reader solves the mystery too quickly, the rest of the novel becomes futile. In order to successfully write a murder mystery, the author must interpellate the reader in a way that makes them a submissive reader who reinforces the classic, or readerly, text.
The Murder Game attempts this by telling the story through a first person perspective. Luke Chase narrates this story, so we only know the information that he does. We are able to see inside of his mind as he puts together clues, questions suspects, and conjures theories. The book must have us asking questions without leading us directly to the murderer. One of the ways it does this is by distracting us with another mystery. This mystery is about Luke’s past. From chapter one, references to Luke’s history as the Kidnapped Kid are made. Because Luke doesn’t like to talk about this, we get answers to this question in flashbacks.
Luke heard “strikes a nerve” and “Kidnapped Kid”…for three years, he had avoided
talking about his kidnapping, or abduction, or whatever people wanted to call it. (36)
The Kidnapped Kid mystery is not only used to distract us, but it is used to introduce another addresser. Mr. Tadeckis, the Survival Skills teacher at Luke’s boarding school, interpellates Luke several times throughout the book. He attempts to interpellate Luke to play a certain role. He urges Luke to embrace his survival skills that he’s demonstrated by escaping his previous kidnappers.
He first approaches Luke right after the murder. He knows that Luke and his friends were in the woods that night.
“Come on, Luke. Don’t play dumb with me. You were there. You know it’s not
the Southborough Stranger.” (91)
Mr. Tadeckis slowly opened the knife, lifted his arm, and…Bam!
Stabbed the knife into the tree behind him. “Relax, Luke. I’m giving
it to you for your own protection.” (94)
At first, Luke resists this role. He hates thinking about his time being kidnapped, and he tends to dismiss any praise he gets for escaping by himself. After this encounter, Mr. Tadeckis waits for Luke to come to him–and he does.
“I wanted to talk to you about the murder.”
“I’m listening,” said Mr. Tadeckis quickly, as if he had been
anticipating this conversation. (199)
Even when Luke approaches Mr. Tadeckis, he resists the role Mr. Tadeckis tries to interpellate him into.
“I don’t believe I have to remind you of your great escape in the
Virginia woods when you were a mere thirteen-year-old. You outwitted
professional criminals.”
Luke shrugged. “It was a fluke”.
Mr. Tadeckis bristled. “I don’t understand why you want to undermine your
strength and fortitude.”
“I just don’t want to be classified as something I’m not!”
“Why? Too much responsibility?”
“‘Maybe,” snapped Luke, “Maybe I was just lucky. Maybe they didn’t
tie the ropes firmly enough. Maybe they were tired, and I picked the right
moment. I don’t want to have this burden of living up to expectations that
I am somehow special just because of one thing I did!’” (203)
Mr. Tadeckis pushes Luke to ask himself, and therefore us as the audience, questions. In doing this, he points us in the wrong direction. This is the author pushing the authorial audience away from the real culprit.
Mr. Tadeckis laughed. “Luke, you are either naive or a genuinely
nice person. What you don’t realize is that they are all lying
to you. All of them. Lying. Your roommate included.” (202)
Finally, at the end of the book, when Mr. Tadeckis saves Luke, he explains that this was the only way for Luke to really believe in himself.
“Of course you did. You were brainwashed into believing your
first escape was just luck. You refused to acknowledge your heroics.
Now you can’t deny them.” (368)
It’s only when the people Luke cares about are in danger that Luke is successfully interpellated, he finally “turns around” and “sits in the seat.” He acknowledges himself as a heroic figure who has the strength to save not only himself, but his friends. He saves Pippa’s life and reveals the true killer, clearing Oscar’s name.
The ideal narrative audience doesn’t know the murderer is Luke’s favorite teacher, Mr. Crawford, until Luke does. However, there are many clues that point us to Mr. Crawford. While the author attempts to throw us off by introducing more suspects, the fact that Mr. Crawford is never suspected by Luke almost makes him more suspicious.
I personally didn’t put all of the pieces together until Luke did. This was more due to the fact that I hadn’t been successfully interpellated into becoming a submissive reader. I grew more and more resistant to the text as the book progressed because of how the mystery itself was presented by the narrator–both the author and Luke.
This was due to some smaller things, like I wasn’t a huge fan of the author’s style, but also because there was a lot of subtle misogyny and victim blaming. The victim of this murder Johanna Heckler, the Dean’s second wife. Though the story revolves around her murder, and although she was a member of the community Luke is in, most of what we know about her is that she was flirtatious and having an affair. Her death is even made into a joke by students.
“Mrs.Heckler was there and she was all over him. I am not kidding. She was
touching him, laughing with him, and telling him that she’s down in Maryland a lot for recruiting and could she hook up with him there..”(128)
“So Mrs.Heckler was a serial seductress,” (298)
Shortly after the announcement of her murder, a bra is displayed by one of the students with the words “Juicy Johanna” on it. Many students find this funny, until Liz, who is said to be Luke’s friend but only seems to show up in moments like this, says:
“Senior pranks should be funny. This wasn’t funny. This was misogyny, plain and simple, and I’m so tired of this school giving students a pass when they do dumb or disgusting things” (63)
By having Liz call out this “prank”, I was almost hopeful that the rest of the book would condemn the sexism surrounding the reactions to Johanna’s murder, but that wasn’t the case at all. She continued to be slut shamed and talked about as if she were a thing rather than a human. Liz’s words to seem to change Luke’s way of thinking for a short while, however. When his friend makes a joke about Mrs.Heckler’s death, Luke tells him he shouldn’t let Liz hear him say that.
“I swear, dude, this murder is the best thing to happen to my social life”
“Don’t let Liz hear you say any of that,”Luke warned. Usually, he found Andy funny, but after Liz had called Andy out, Luke couldn’t help picturing her and his sisters looking on with disapproval. (111)
However, this still doesn’t change the fact that Luke continues to unconsciously victim blame Johanna. For the majority of the book, he focuses on what she could have done to deserve being murdered. He has this epiphany towards the end of the book that perhaps she didn’t do anything to get murdered, maybe the murderer is just a bad guy. Who would’ve thought?
Luke’s mind sifted through all of the evidence, trying to focus on anything that would have revealed what Mrs.Heckler might have done to her lover. Did she call him a mean name? Was it just that she’d broken up with him? (299)
Luke shot up in his bed. It was simple. He shouldn’t have been focusing on Mrs.Heckler, but instead, her killer. Maybe it wasn’t something Mrs.Heckler did to the killer per se; maybe it was something about him. (300)
This fact made me resistant to text’s interpellation. It wanted me to sit in Luke’s seat, to care enough about these characters and the stakes that I’d want to solve Johanna’s murder too. However, I didn’t care enough about any of the characters to feel compelled to solve the murder. On the other hand, it isn’t entirely unrealistic for a story to blame its female victim, especially when being told through a young man’s point of view. Since they acknowledged that Johanna didn’t necessarily do anything to be killed at the end, I guess that’s good?
So, I suppose the impact that the rhetorical dimension had on me as a reader was limited. In a way that was sort of the opposite to the Savior’s Champion, I lost interest the further I got into the book. The only time I felt invested at all was at the climax, and even then it wasn’t so much that I cared about Luke surviving, I was just curious as to how he was going to escape again. As an addressee of the narrative, I just wasn’t compelled enough to sit in that seat it was asking me to.
Conclusion:
The story was an understanding of one’s struggle as trouble happens in his way. There are interesting aspects in which a reader understands the aspects of mimitrec style. There is so much to learn as one knows the experience of what would happen in life. Knowing that Luke won the battle against mr. Crawford in the end was something to take note of.
Final reflection
Learning in this class for me was a struggle, as I was dealing with hardships, in which it got the best of me. The only things I have learned was mimetic style, which was reading for the experience and last act climax, which was the excitement of a part of a story. Understanding the assigned readings was also a struggle, understanding what it means. It was a difficult time during this course, but it was worth mentioning.
superreaders 