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Julian Grebe

English 093

12/10/09

Die, Die My Darling

Jacob walks home after a long day at work, only to open his door and find his wife with

another man. In a panic his wife pushes the other man away and says “Alright calm down, relax,

start breathing”. Jacob, his eyes red and his fists clenched starts pacing, then he grabs a vase and

throws it at a glass table which shatters into pieces [Absolute]. While this is happening the other

man slips away unnoticed by either Jacob or his wife. Jacob then looks at his wife, who is in

tears, and says, “I’m gonna kill you” [Relative]. Then he fiercely lunges at her, causing her to

fall on the shattered glass from the table, which cuts deep into her neck, causing her to bleed

uncontrollably. Jacob, who sees that his wife is badly wounded, looks down at her face and says,

“Now you know how I feel”, then walks away, leaving her to die [NS - That]. The police later

find Jacob’s body hanging from the ceiling and call the case a murder suicide [Participle].

Like in the case above, infidelity may cause domestic violence, which sometimes leads to

murder. However, short-term or long-term abuse may also lead to murder. One of the more

common types of murder is through self-defense, which if proven in court is not considered

murder.

According to the article ’Till Death Do Us Part” by Nancy Gibbs “a classic self-defense

plea also demands a fair fight [Prepositional]. A person who is punched can punch back, but if

he shoots, he runs the risk of being charged with murder or manslaughter.” In my opinion,

accidently killing someone, while the victim is defending him or her self, with the fair fight

tactics given in the above quote is acceptable murder. However, as said by Joshua Dressler and
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quoted in the article by Gibbs, what if “a husband says, ‘when I get up tomorrow morning, I’m

going to beat the living daylights out of you’”? A preemptive attack on the husband would be a

choice, but the victim – in this case the wife - can either leave or take legal action against the

husband [Appositive].

However, Gibbs quotes Julia Blackman, who says, “sometimes they don’t leave because

they have young children and no way to support them, or because they grow up in cultures that

are so immersed in violence that they don’t figure there’s any place better to go, or because they

can’t get apartments.” Gibbs further says that “the shelter facilities around the country are

uniformly inadequate” and the other “reason women do not flee is because, ironically, they are

afraid for their life” [Coordinator]. The same could probably be said for taking legal action [NS

– Gerund]. With these two options out, the next option would be to attempt a preemptive attack

- when a person attacks somebody before he or she is attacked by that person [NS – Infinitive].

In my opinion, a preemptive attack does not justify killing, even when the person who is

attempting the preemptive attack is physically weaker than his or her victim [NS – WH]. Also as

Gibbs says, “it is even harder for a lawyer to call it self-defense when a woman shoots her

sleeping husband”.

Like in the very first paragraph, the betrayal of someone by his of her spouse would

provoke the betrayed person to try and kill his or her betraying spouse [Infinitive]. Killing

someone due to this reason is not self-defense. On the contrary I think it is down-right murder.

Giving an opinion on people who have experienced past abuse only to kill their attacker

this time is much harder. As prosecutors suggest in Gibbs’ article, “If a woman has survived past

beatings”, but kills her attacker this time her “catalyst they suggest was not fear, but fury.”

Technically in that type of case it is self-defense, but over the past beatings the victim, the

defender, could have either taken legal action or left his or her abuser. Since those two options
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are available to a person in that type of situation in my opinion when he or she kills his or her

partner, it should not be considered self-defense.

Even though most of the examples above show that it is usually the males fault, it is

always a two-way street, meaning that there are always two sides to the problem

[Subordinator]. As I said before I believe that murder through self-defense, defense with a fair

fight, is the only form of acceptable murder. The others like a preemptive attack or murder

through past abuse and betrayal are not acceptable murder, and people who murder other people

through those means should not be able to walk free without serving a suitable sentence or

penalty.