Friday, January 2, 2009
[Source:
http://www.librarything.com/work/173604]
Last week, I finished reading Jodi Picoult’s novel “Mercy”. One conflict in the novel is euthanasia. Euthanasia is mercy killing. In the novel, James Macdonald killed his wife because his wife had cancer. She was going to die anyway.
This made me think a lot about euthanasia. The novel left me with a lot of questions but basically pointed out to
who was more selfish? In the beginning of the book, I immediately thought of how selfish James was. He wasn’t in any position to take away the life of his wife, Maggie even though he is her husband. He is not the only person in Maggie’s life. Maggie had friends and parents who may have wanted her to live for a little bit longer. Did he consider their feelings and thoughts? No, he only thought of himself.
At one point in the story, he even thought that the real reason why he killed her was because he didn’t want to see her that way and that he wanted to remember her as the healthy Maggie. Maybe it was just his own selfishness that driven him to kill her.
But in the middle of the book, I changed my mind. Maggie was the selfish one. She made James promise to kill her. During that time, James would do everything for Maggie, including killing her just to please her. He was like her little robot. She made him think that everything would be okay.
It wasn’t. James was left with a trial, dead wife and a lost hope. He just wanted to get the trial over with and rot in jail. Maggie never thought that he could go to jail for killing her but James knew this all along. He knew he would go to jail because after killing her, he went immediately to a police station and turned himself in.
James loved her too much to care. It is said in the book that in a marriage, there is always someone who loves more, and who is giving more to make the relationship work and to keep things the way they used to be. That was James. He loved her more.
In real life, there are probably a lot of cases of euthanasia. I bet a lot of them ended up with the "killer" in jail because in the law, it all points out to what you did. It doesn't matter
why you did it. We should all take note though that in ordinary murders, killers do it out of hate but in euthanasia, "killers" do it out of love. That makes it different.
I would definitely recommend this book. Jodi Picoult is an amazing author. Amazing is not even the right word to describe her because she has this way of making you think of what is right and what is wrong; and if those things (right or not) really matter;
Labels: euthanasia, jodi picoult, mercy
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