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What does the motivation for murder teach us about the human condition?…

- - - - "John Wilkes Booth shared political views that were identical to the views held by millions of southerners, hundreds of thousands and likely millions of northerners" (The Assassination...). Many historians question Booth's sanity and why he would throw away his life and acting career. It came down to vengeance and one final attack on the abolition of slavery in the Confederacy: "he was a man without prospects. He was a man who felt his world and everything he held dear had been crushed and humiliated" (The Assassination...).
        
        "The war had rendered his life marginal and irrelevant" (The Assassination...), and John Wilkes Booth struggled with coming to grips that his career as an actor was denigrated because of the actions of the North, specifically Lincoln.
        
        Booth ultimately killed Lincoln because of his belief that black people were inferior compared to white supremacy, and he felt his sense of personal worth, power, and status being threatened, so he took action. He also was frustrated and took his rage out on Lincoln: "Booth’s anger and disappointment began to focus on the one man he held responsible for the South’s suffering" (The Assassination...)
        
        Booth directed his anger and all the blame onto Lincoln as the primary source for all his troubles, when in reality, Booth's ludicrous beliefs and his utter failure as a performer were the reason for his suffering: shortly before he died, Booth's final words was to tell his mother he died for his country.
      - Lincoln advocated for black freedom in the United States, and the Civil War was "being fought to reinvent the United States, not to preserve it. The government, the republic, that would come out of this war, would not at all be the same anymore" (The Assassination...). Booth was not content with this outcome, and he sought to protect the South at all costs.
        
        This was war aimed "to tear up the South, to destroy its institutions, to overthrow its way of life, and to end their civilization as they had known it" (The Assassination...). Booth felt bitterness and defeat, and he could not let his hatred and boiling resentment go.
        
        John Wilkes Booth was shamed by his inability to kidnap the president, and he became desperate. Booth wanted to "punish the North for what it’s done to the South. Now revenge is not a very noble motive, but we all understand it is a very compelling human motive and sometimes it overwhelms" (The Assassination...)
      - "Booth asks Jones of course for food, and news, and particularly newspapers. He wanted to know what the public thought about the assassination. What were the reviews of this final performance of his" (The Assassination...). Booth was expecting to be declared as some national hero, but everyone was furious. He was in it for the fame and wanted to justify his actions to the American people.
        
        "The historical memory of Booth is that he was the flawed young tragic actor who wrongfully sacrificed his greatness and his life for a cause he held dear. Booth helped perpetrate that because he performed the assassination. He performed the escape. He performed his death. And somehow he transmuted it all into America’s greatest drama. And he’s tricked us into thinking it isn’t all real. It’s too incredible to be real. And so we forget that Lincoln suffered. We forget how his wife and how his children suffered. How the nation suffered" (The Assassination...).
        
        All the attention, like many murders and acts of violence, is on the perpetrator rather than the actual victim and what life was taken away. This appeals to the idea about finding pleasure in murder cases is a method of dehumanization just like the actual killings themselves.
    - - He was the son of the greatest actor in America, and he was very entitled in pursuing his aspiring acting career. He had dramatic impulses, was adored by fans, and had a vibrancy on stage that captured people's attention. "He loved characters in the heroic mold" (The Assassination...), and Booth was obsessed with the thrill of attention-seeking.
      - "John Wilkes spent most of his time in the South. That’s where he received his great acclaim, that’s where he felt best loved. And over time he naturally adopted the Southern point of view" (The Assassination...). To feel competent and individualize himself as a person outside of the burden of fame from his family, he sought out gratification in the South, which sustained his comfort and influenced is way of thinking.
        
        He viewed society and the institution of slavery as ideal way of living and saw it as a blessing to everyone, including African Americans. Booth abhorred abolitionism and anyone associated with the North. He blamed them entirely for the division of the country and saw it as an attack that served to devalue and derail the success and prosperity of the South (The Assassination...).
        
        Common theme of avoiding blame and seeing himself as correct and incapable of flawed-thinking. Booth viewed himself "as someone that literally God had put here to correct the tyranny of Abraham Lincoln" (The Assassination...).
    - - John Wilkes Booth gathered a group of people to kidnap the president and ransom him to thousands of Confederates. These people included John Surrat, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and a few others. "It was as though a great star of the modern age picked you, a completely anonymous, unknown person of no status, no wealth, no importance, a great star picks you to be his confidante, his pal, his companion, to travel with, to dine with, drink with" (The Assassination...). The conspirators did not join the plan because they hated Lincoln or his beliefs, but because they loved John Wilkes Booth---he gave them something they had been denied and did not currently posses.
        
        They decided to commit acts of treason out of a sense of belonging and interpersonal fulfillment, revealing violence against others resulting from a motivation to feel empowered and wanted.
        
        Lewis Powell was to murder the secretary of state, William Seward. George Atzerodt's job was to murder the vice president, Andrew Johnson. "Booth of course reserved the greatest act for himself. He would perform the Lincoln assassination solo" (The Assassination...)
        
        Booth carried out the avenging of the South and murdered Lincoln in front of everyone at the theatre. Lewis Powell severely injured Seward at his home and failed to kill him then and there. And George Azterodt was too afraid and never carried out his plan.
    - - Many slaves feared that the Emancipation Proclamation would be revoked; however, within 24 hours the fear transformed into fervent rage as people were rioting and taking everything out on those who did not support the Union or show signs of remorse for Lincoln's murder. "It was a dangerous time. Up to 200 people were murdered in the streets of America’s cities within two or three days of the Lincoln assassination" (The Assassination...).
        
        "Within hours of Lincoln’s death, mobs had formed in many Northern and occupied Southern cities. In San Francisco, throngs destroyed the newspaper offices of the Democratic Press. In Washington, vigilantes surrounded a jail holding Confederate prisoners. Two former-Presidents — Franklin Pierce and Millard Fillmore — faced angry crowds outside their homes after they failed to show evidence of mourning" (The Assassination...)
        
        "When people wept for Lincoln, or when they went to their diaries, as many did, and they drew black around the pages, they were really weeping for themselves. They were weeping for their own kids. They were weeping for their own losses. We mourn for ourselves even when we mourn a great public leader" (The Assassination...). The people were grieving the loss of a war hero and who united the states together.
- - - - "The logic of epistemic arrest and domestication that I have begun to outline here contributes to 'the avoidance of the real of desire' in detective fiction, permitting the reading subject to mis-identify his or her real, violent, possibly even murderous desires as belonging to someone else" (Rushing 92). The critic condemns people for their underhanded and deceptive maneuvers to use their obsession with murder mystery as a scapegoat for their inner desire. This characterizes man as a prisoner of desire and deceiving themselves in their efforts to remain faultless in spite of clear motivation for the same actions of criminals in their literature.
        
        And as mimicked in the world of Hercule Poirot, "The pleasure of Murder on the Orient Express, then, is the pleasure of exoneration of the vigilante. We get to see the realization of our vigilante desires and be freed of guilt for having them" (Rushing 100). In the end of the novel, the passengers are appear to be innocent when in reality are all guilty of withholding dark secrets and lies about their true intentions. Poirot lets all the culprits go, letting them deal with the consequences of having blood on their hands. In a way, he frees them from their actions. Similarly, detective fiction achieves a familiar effect where the reader's desire to remain blameless yet unaccountable is honored and endorsed.
        
        The shiftiness of evil and the concealment of the truth via deception and lies demonstrates people's desperation to not tarnish one's self image and their willingness to harm others in the process.
        
        Reactions to murder seem to include remorse, regret, and feelings of guilt and being convicted. What follows is an urge to hide and cover the truth (ex: Dr Sheppard hanging himself after Poirot's confrontation) yet a paralleled search for comfort and acceptance. This can be seen in the Governess and Missionary on the Orient Express who broke down in tears and were hopelessly distraught about the death of the Armstrong family and their own murderous responses. Other people, more typically seen in Christie's literature, result in pure anger and animosity with no feelings of remorse, but rather, a wrongful justification for one's thoughts, motives, and behavior (ex: Mrs. Hubbard).
      - The thrill of murder mysteries make life so much more interesting, and living vicariously through these conflict-driven experiences is a desire that many people have in common. For example, in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the village is enthralled by the business of other people and captivated by illustrious scandals: "Able-bodied men are apt to leave the place early in life, but we are rich in unmarried ladies and retired military officers. Our hobbies and recreations can be summed up in the one word, 'gossip'" (Christie 7). The rumors and stories that are spread are quite literally "the life and soul" (Christie 8) of the peaceful village, which implies that a lack of satisfaction in one's own life motivates triggers the infatuation with others'.
- - - - Detective Hercule Poirot "visualized a self-appointed jury of twelve people who condemned him to death and were forced by exigencies of the case to be their own executioners. And immediately, on that assumption, the whole case fell into beautiful shining order" (Chrisite 258).
      - "It wasn't only that he was responsible for my daughter's death and her child's, and that of the other child who might have been alive and happy now. It was more than that. There had been other children before Daisy--there might be others in the future. Society had condemned him; we were only carrying out the sentence" (Christie 264).
        
        It is evident in grandmother Armstrong's statement about the reasons why she carried out the killing that it is an attempt to shift blame onto the victim and the rest of society: everyone is to blame but herself, in fact, she was doing the world a great service in killing out of a sense of duty and vengeance. While there may be some truth to this, instead of placing responsibility on herself and taking ownership by means of explaining her motivation, Mrs. Hubbard distances herself from the matter altogether. The avoidance of desire is clearly depicted in this scene, and Poirot's ability to understand what drove them to murder, specifically their response to being found guilty by shifting blame onto all but themselves, makes the whole case fall "into beautiful shining order"---it is a perfect representation of human nature's hypocritical tendency to claim innocence in the face of their shameful actions.
  - - - Gratification: An inherent impatience common in human nature also drives people to commit terrible acts of violence. In pursuit of immediate gratification, those who sacrifice others at their own expense demonstrate low self-control and a lack of "deferral of satisfaction" (Hoffman) that murderers do not have. Ratchett kidnaps and murders Daisy out of his inability to delay gratification for his selfish desire for money and power.
      - Recognition of Competence: "We strive for competence because it defines who we are and in turn serves as a foundation for accomplishment and recognition" (Hoffman). After being denied of human affirmation and not receiving appreciation from others, it is clear that an abyss of fulfillment envelops in those who feel inadequate. This principle sheds light on the actions of characters in Agatha Christie, specifically Dr. Sheppard, who is obsessed with his reputation and level of competency among the rest of the village, so much so he blackmails and murders others.
      - Emotional Intelligence: Murder is also a method of emotion reduction in order to have an effective strategy for control. For example, "emotions continue with a vengeance until the source of the frustration is identified and a response is taken to reduce the emotional distress" (Hoffman). Those who take their aggression out on others often result to violence to cope with the emotional disturbances in their lives.
      - Social Reciprocity: This urge for payback in human behaviors to repair perceived discord by responding accordingly to the actions of others serves as a powerful motive for violence. "In the mind of the depraved, when an action goes unreciprocated, tempestuous reactions and vile behavior must follow because most individuals believe in the restoration of social or materialistic inequity" (Hoffman).
      - Goal Attainment: Human achievement and feeling sufficient is a huge driving force in the lives of people. Hoffman argues that one of the main motivations for murder spawns "if we believe we lack control over our lives or doubt our ability to reach goals, we become frustrated. In turn, frustration—a highly motivating emotion—must be eliminated or we continue to feel badly about our perceived inadequacy. A simple solution is to change goals or pursue an easier target" (Hoffman).
    - - "The body--the cage--is everything of the most respectable--but through the bars, the wild animal looks out" (Christie 17)
- - - - Often, it is understood that there are two victims in every case: those who have been killed and those who are left to pick up the pieces. Murder impacts not only the one who the perpetrator directly targets, but the community and network of relationships are completely destroyed in the process.
    - - To deal with their pain and inner turmoil, many turn to violence and cannot forgive properly or cope with the trauma of their circumstances. To bear the weight and pay for the damage that has been done is too high of a price, and victims of abuse and pent-up frustration resort to violence to relinquish their burdens and assert control over the situation.
  - - - "The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to the seeker after it" (Chrisite 145). The mention that something has gone horribly wrong with man's inherent nature and relationships with one another suggest that there is some source of hope hidden in the truth, that by judging people's behavior and mistreatment as damaged goods, shows some objective standard of measuring a redemptive reality as opposed to a meaningless relativity.