Unseen Extract – ‘The Dinner Guestʼ By B P
Walter (chapter 46)
Unseen Extract – ‘The Dinner Guestʼ By B P Walter (chapter 46)
Questions about who is capable of murder. What drives a person to kill?
Crime element of false confessions and non-guilty suspects.
Conflicting response to murder.
Psychology of the criminal – lack of remorse.
The extract presents the revelation of a crime, as the central character Charlie confesses to his
parents that he killed his partner Matthew due to a hinted affair. The extract explores ideas
surrounding what creates a criminal, alongside the crime elements of false confessions,
suspects, and the psychology of the criminal. The reader experiences a conflicting response to
the murder in the extract as the victim is removed and remaining characters only appear to
speculate and reflect on a crime seeming to feel various juxtaposing and confusing emotions. In
this essay I will therefore discuss the significance of this extract in relation to the genre of crime
fiction.
As the extract begins immediately the question of what makes a criminal is introduced through
Charlieʼs mothers surprised language; “ʼI never would have thought it possible … that you could
kill Matthew”. This builds anticipation and introduces the crime element of tension into the
extract, and it establishes a few questions in the readers mind such as what drives a person to
kill and motivates a murder, and what type of a society breeds such individuals? The motivation
of the crime is then quickly revealed with the reference to the affair and how “Matthew was
cheating on” Charlie. It is a motivation fairly central to crime fiction being used from the Golden
Age with Poirot (Christieʼs gentlemanly detective stating it is the second most common
motivation after money, to Hard-Boiled, to more modernly psychological thriller texts which the
extract appears to resemble, and it therefore forces the reader to reflect internally within
themselves of what would drive them to kill.
The homodiegetic focalising narrators surprising response of “ʼYou never thought I would be
capable?”, is a peculiar and strange rhetoric to a confession that he does not appear capable of
murder. The language seems challenging as though the narrator has something to prove, and
the lack of shame or remorse reflects a cold and harsh view of human life – not reflecting on the
life he has taken but the effect it has on his character. This selfish view of murder removes
sympathy from the extract. As the narrator gives the reader a flashback as a reminder of the
crime the description of how Matthew “realised what I was doing, a split second before the knife
slid into him”, the repeated number of questions used do not surround the victim but the
criminal – Charlie – again. He once again reminisces whether he had “been shocked that his
husband was – always had been – capable of murder?” emphasising the selfishness of this
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