With just a couple thousand dollars to her name, and hopeful to write her paper; Corrie Swanson a determined young individual is investigating the death of miners by a bear. She meets a man along the way named Ted who is the librarian at Roaring Fork. As for Ted, he has a desire for Corrie that ends up with him going crazy. This is why murder itself isn’t the culprit but infatuation and love that causes the act of murder to be committed. Real life crime stories and novels such as Romeo and Juliet have a relation to murder. Furthermore murder is not just murder, in Romeo and Juliet love was played as well, and in this story love and murder go hand in hand. Ted had a considerable amount of affection with Corrie. At the end of the novel Ted tells it all “…Why are you here? To find some rich asshole. I wasn’t rich enough for you! That’s why you played with me. Leading me on the way you did. (Chapter 59, page 425). Ted assumed that Corrie intended to find a rich man and be set for life but Corrie never had that in mind, instead her main goal was to solve the case of the death of the miners. In comparison to murder, like the novel Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, love was portrayed as well as murder. Juliet had committed …show more content…
Ted, who had grown up when mining was still current, had been exposed to mercury poisoning. In the ending of the novel, as detective Prendergast started piecing the puzzle one by one; he finally realized that it was Ted. “the Roman house built directly on the site of the smelter, in the zone of the greatest contamination … there was little doubt that Ted Roman had been exposed to toxic mercury in his mother’s womb, and raised in a toxic house, drinking toxic water, taking toxic showers” (Chapter 60, Page 431). Studies have shown severe causes of mercury poisoning. Mercury poisoning illustrates impaired neurological function, multiple sclerosis, hallucinations, cerebral atrophy, and chronic insomnia. All these symptoms lead to the way Ted acts, with cerebral atrophy, Ted’s brain slowly degenerates therefore his brain shrinks and slowly impairs all of his neurological functions. Chronic insomnia leads to schizophrenia, which is the characterized as the abnormal act of social behavior and fails to notice that what he’s committing is wrong. This is where Ted relates to this greatly, the house fires, and his attempted murder of Corrie Swanson is considered to be an offense but to Ted it’s a way to cleanse her. “His eyes were so bloodshot, they were almost red, his hands were trembling with rage, his whole body was trembling, and his voice was so strange, so different. Looking at him was