Killing Mr Griffin by Lois Duncan
Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois DuncanPlot: Commencing at Del Norte High School of a small town called Alberseque, five students began to involve themselves in scheming and plotting of a very twisted plan which backfired on them. The scheme slowly evolved after many conflicts between the students and their English teacher, Mr. Griffin, for various reasons such as marks or dislike of his teaching methods. Mark, who had failed the course and deeply loathed Mr. Griffin, brainstormed to kidnap and “scare” the teacher with the help of his friends, Jeff and Betsy. In desperate need of a distraction or diversion for this plan, Mark told his friend, Dave to ask the smartest girl in the class, Susan (who liked Dave) for help; she was expected to arrange a conference with Mr. Griffin on the kidnapping day. Although Susan didn’t want to, she agreed for Dave’s sake. On the day, they waited anxiously for Mr. Griffin to come from the conference. When he approached, the students (except Susan) bagged his head and drove him to a secluded area. After they arrived there, the teenagers pressed the teacher to beg for a release, but he refused; out of anger, they dumped his heart medication and left afterwards. A few hours later, Susan called Dave with guilt to bring Mr. Griffin back, but too late — the teacher already died of a heart attack when they came. They immediately drove back to school and notified their friends. Mark declared that they went too far and it was time to destroy any clues and hide the truth. Meanwhile, Mrs. Griffin notified the police, who assumed her husband deserted her. To add onto that, Mark persuaded Susan into lying to the police (she was supposed to be the last one to see the teacher) that Griffin left with another woman (lying he was still alive). To destroy all possible clues, the teenagers got rid of the car and buried the body. Just then, someone reported finding Griffin’s medication (with his name). The police went to the spot, found the burial site, and dug up the body. Meanwhile, Dave’s grandmother accidentally knew too much; Mark had killed her. From various clues, Susan discovered that Mark had killed the old lady and finally decided to go to the police, but wanted to convince Mark to turn himself in. However, Betsy and Jeff tied her up, and left her with Mark, who, defending the secret, set her house on fire to kill Susan. However, Mrs. Griffin came to her house and then saved Susan. Now, Susan had no choice but to tell the truth. As a result, Susan wouldn’t be charged if she testified against the others. Mark was charged for three crimes, and Betsy, Jeff, and Dave were charged with second-degree murders. The story ends with Susan realizing what a great teacher Mr. Griffin was and how regretful she was for her wrong decision in life.
Protagonist: Protagonist, Susan McConelle was an interesting character and extremely bright, yet at the same time easily persuaded and unrealistic. Throughout the story, Susan was constantly seen being manipulated by others and agreeing to many things she didn’t want to do. In particular, Susan didn’t feel like being part of the plan to kidnap Mr. Griffin, but because Dave took her on a date, she agreed nevertheless. Similarly, Susan never wanted to lie (saying that Mr. Griffin deserted his wife for another woman), but because Mark simply threatened her once, she decided to go along. As a result, this explains that although Susan had many values and beliefs against various issues in the story, after some favours or threats, she would immediately change her mind and go against her own wishes. In addition, Susan was unrealistic in her thinking and making choices in her life since she was really naive and always figured everything would fall into place, without taking any action. For example, when others told Susan that the kidnapping was simply a joke, she just believed that and never even considered the consequence of such an illegal activity. As well, Susan wanted to have friends, but only daydreamed about that instead of trying to talk to others or introducing herself. This explains that Susan never strived for things she wants in life, but only imagines her “perfect life” and always believes things will work out perfectly without considering consequences. Lastly, Susan was proven to be really bright and intelligent as a student as well as a quick-thinker in figuring out crimes logically and quickly. As an illustration, she was the only junior student in Mr. Griffin’s class, but achieved the highest marks in the class; she was the only one who could link the clues given of Dave’s grandmother’s death to facts about Mark to point him as the killer. This proves that Susan was very creative and expressive in her work to achieve such high marks, as well as quick and logical in thinking to be able to figure out a crime with logic and speed. On the whole, Susan was a warm-hearted and intelligent person from inside, but just too unrealistic and easily persuaded to be used for doing wrong things in life. However, she grew up a lot, learnt many skills on life decisions, and it’s obvious she won’t be making any more foolish mistakes.
Theme: Despite the many different morals displayed in the novel, it was visible that the main theme was you shouldn’t change someone to realize your expectations, but instead try to improve your own ways and habits to meet their high standards and expectations. In the story, Mr. Griffin tried to use his strict and high standard way of teaching to make students work hard and strive for the “perfect” results while reaching their highest potential possible. However, most of his students didn’t appreciate his way of thinking at all and couldn’t accept his different way of teaching from previous teachers. So, they sulked, complained, protested, and even plotted revenge against the teacher to make him change his expectations to fit theirs. Meanwhile, for all the time they wasted disliking the new ways of learning, they could’ve just got their act together and studied harder to meet the higher standards presented to them. In all cases, once something in your life changes, you will have to get adjusted to it and change your ways. Thus, the theme also explains that in the society today, you can’t depend on others to change to suit your needs, but you have to makes the changes necessary to survive in this competitive world. All Mr. Griffin wanted to do by being strict with his students was to show what disciplined learning is about so they would be prepared for post-secondary education; for the others, he simply wanted them to see how far they could achieve with their highest potential. The theme also introduces the fact that everyone’s different (such as their teaching methods) so people should learn to accept and attune to that fact. Therefore, if Mr. Griffin’s students had tried to adapt to his ideas and tried being resourceful, things wouldn’t have turned out the way they did.
Opinion: When I first read the extract of the book, I felt that this book was too far-fetched from reality and almost like a fantasy novel. When I finished the book however, I discovered that some events in the novel (like Mr. Griffin’s students kidnapping him) weren’t so far away from the reality as I’d thought. Lots of things weren’t planned out to have a tragic ending, but plans and motives will often backfire on you. For instance, the students never planned to kill the teacher but to scare him; instead, they ended up with a serious crime digging themselves deeper and deeper into their mistake. The teenagers weren’t exactly evil people, but out of their anger and childish thoughts, did what they did. I could see from Susan’s point of view on how she did lots of things out of impulse and desire. She desperately dreamed of having a boyfriend and friends, and when all of that was suddenly given to her, she made a spontaneous mistake that would haunt her forever. This book was also different from others I’ve read since it had an ending that was more based on real life. Usually the so-called “good guys” of a movie/novel usually get saved after being kidnapped and always finish first. In this book, Mr. Griffin was a great teacher worked hard to make his students exceed their limits and complete work which they have never done before (of the highest quality possible). This made them hate him, but he still wanted the best for them. In Killing Mr. Griffin, this great teacher ends up dead. I also think that sometimes, marks don’t mean everything, but experience does. Although his students might’ve achieved better marks in other classes, but what they learned in Mr. Griffin’s class was worth more than any numbers written on paper since they learned about challenging themselves and seeing what they could achieve. Overall, I really liked this book and found many different views of problems in society today, plus morals for success in the future life.