José M.

Sanchez Consudec
Language IV

Rationale

The short story I wrote was based on story nº 1 from the book True Stories of Law &
Order by Kevin Dwyer and Juré Fiorillo. This is the story of an eccentric transvestite
billionaire, Robert Durst, who was accused of murdering three people.
I have chosen this story because it seems to leave the reader with many doubts
and that is why I have decided on that title; Doubt. I was inspired by two tales by Edgar
Allan Poe: The Black Cat and The Tell-Tale Heart. The interesting aspect in those
stories is the idea of presenting a first person narrator who is a murderer. The idea of
reading a story narrated by the killer seems to be quite attractive. Rather than telling the
reader events after events I tried to describe the main character’s mind, his feelings, his
contradictions, his doubts and his way of confusing the reader.
I did some research and I found that Robert Durst might have suffered from
schizophrenia or Asperger syndrome. That is said to make the patient have problems
regarding social interaction. People who suffer from schizophrenia are believed to have
hallucinations and difficulties regarding recalling. This information was used in the
story to make it more real and I focused mainly on the narrator’s insane mind.