Murder of Merrin THE DESCRIPTION 1

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3.2 Murder of Merrin

Murder is the crime of deliberately killing a person something that is very difficult or unpleasant. The term “murder” comes from middle English murther, from Old English morthor; partly from Middle English murder, from Anglo-French, of Germanic origin; akin to Old English morthor; akin to Old High German mord murder, Latin mort-, mors death, mori to die, mortuus dead, Greek brotos mortal. A person who commits murder is called a murderer. Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice afore thought, of another human, and generally this premeditated state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide such as manslaughter. As the loss of a human being inflicts enormous grief upon the individuals close to the victim, and the commission of murder is highly detrimental to the good order within society, most societies both present and in antiquity have considered it a most serious crime worthy of the harshest of punishment in most countries, a person convicted of murder is typically given a long prison sentence, possibly a life sentence where permitted, and in some countries, the death penalty may be imposed for such an act- thought this practice is becoming less common. The night that Merrin broke it off with Ig and was murdered. They meet at a local watering hole. Ig is about to take off for a six month internship in England with Amnesty International. Merrin surprises Ig by telling him that she thinks they should see other people while Ig is gone. The only relationship they’ve ever had is with each other. Merrin insists that they should explore other Universitas Sumatera Utara 19 opportunities. Ig is stunned and devastated. He argues with her, pleads with her, and then flees from the bar in anger. What Merrindoes afterward we learn later. Ig decides to confront Lee with the knowledge that he killed Merrin. Everybody else is compelled to tell Ig the truth. Ig hopes it will be the same with Lee who now works for a Republican congressman. He arrives and is confronted by the congressman’s security detail. Lee agrees to come down and see him. Ig lays out his accusation and waits for the horns to work. Lee is unfazed. He denies killing Merrin and tells Ig to get gone. Ig takes up residence in the old foundry where they played as children. He sleeps in the furnace and makes friends with the numerous snakes who inhabit the area. They congregate around him. He’s always been afraid of snakes, but how he finds an affinity for them. He returns to his parents home and finds Terry there. By touching Terry, he learns why his own brother was complicit in the murder of his girlfriend and covered for Lee. Lee and Terry were out partying one night. Lee tells Terry that Merrin has confided in him that she plans to break it off with Ig. He wants to drive by the bar where Merrin is meeting Ig to make sure they are okay. Terry is too drunk and too stoned to protest. They get there and find Merrin standing outside in the rain, crying. Lee asks her to get into the car and they take off. Terry passes out in the backseat, striking his head on a tool box. While Terry is passed out, Lee goes off into the woods with Merrin. He returns and awakens Terry and tells him that Merrin is dead. Furthermore, he has made it so that it will appear as if Terry killed her. Terry is blackmailed into keeping quiet. The actual events that transpired between Universitas Sumatera Utara 20 Lee and Merrin are not yet revealed. Ig returns to the foundry to ponder what he’s learned. He gets drunk on cheap wine and notices that the snakes have once again gathered. He delivers a drunken sermon to his new congregation about how God fears women because, like God, women have the power of creating life. He also has a flashback to a memory of an afternoon when he and Merrin were teenagers and found a tree house in the middle of the woods. The couple enter the tree house and make love. While lying in afterglow, somebody tries to force entry into the tree house via a trap door. Scared, Ig and Merrin place and old chair over the door. The person leaves. The couple then pray over plastic figurines of Mary, Jesues, and the Devil and leave. They try tofind the tree house again, but are never able to find it. As he’s reveling in his past and preaching to his slithering congregation, Lee shows up with his henchman. Ig notices that Lee is wearing Merrin’s crucifix and rips it from his neck as Lee and his assistant administer a beating. They then put Ig in his car and set it afire. Instead of killing Ig, the fire restores his senses. He releases the parking brake and allows the car to roll down the hill into the river. He swims from the car with the assistance of the many snakes in the river. Then flashback to Lee’s early life. He endured a serious brain injury as a child and his personality underwent a major change. About his lust for Merrin and how he slowly killed his mother by sweating her death in a hot room as she was prostrate from cancer. Lee and Ig were supportive and sympathetic to the young Lee as his mother laid dying. Merrin shows up just after she dies and they embrace. Lee cops a feel and Merrin allows him to. This leads Lee to believe that Universitas Sumatera Utara 21 Merrin wants him. He reads desire in every remark and gesture. However, when he finds her outside the bar the night she breaks it off with Ig, she tells Lee she was never interested in him. In a rage, Lee rapes and kills her with a large rock. He plants blood from Terry’s cut head on the rock to use for blackmail. ‘She was your friend,Lee,’Ig said as he retreated around the front end of the car. ‘she trusted you, and you raped her and killed her and left her in the woods. How could you do that?’ Horns 2010,198 Recovered from the car fire, Ig is standing on the shore when he notices the police have arrived and a crowd has gathered. Among the crowd is Merrin’s father. Using the power of the horns, Ig convinces Merrin’s father to take him to their home. Ig explores the house and eventually makes his way to the attic where he finds Merrin’s possessions boxed up. There, he finds out the true story of Merrin’s breakup with him. As she’d once used Morse code to attract him, she’d planned to use Morse code to explain why she was breaking it off with him. She’d planned to mail the coded letter after he’d left for England. In the letter, she explains that she has breast cancer – the same type that killed her sister. She has decided she will not undergo chemotherapy. She wants Ig out of her life because she knows that her love for him might compel her to try the therapy – not for herself – but out of love for Ig. He returns to the foundry. His old girlfriend, Glenna finds him there and they talk. Using his newly acquired power of suggestion, he tells Glenna to leave their hometown and find a better life. She leaves, but forgets her cell phone. Ig puts the cell phone to use. Universitas Sumatera Utara 22 It isn’t long before Ig discovers that along with the horns he has developed some rather extraordinary powers which can only be of supernatural origin. The first of these powers to present itself is not one that overly thrills him and over which he seems to have very little control. It seems that anyone he now comes across feels the need to tell him some very bad things about themselves, dark secrets they would never share with those close to them let alone with a complete stranger. And the things revealed to him by his live-in sort of girlfriend, Glenna, and his family members threaten to immediately and irrevocably destroy whatever relationships he may have had with these people, the few left in town who have not turned their backs on him. It’s no secret that the vast majority of the local townsfolk do not think too highly of Ig these days. You see, a year earlier Ig’s longtime girlfriend, Merrin, was found raped and brutally murdered beneath a tree out near a local, long abandoned foundry. Ig was the prime suspect but ended up staying out of prison do to the rather timely destruction of some key evidence in the case. Sure, Ig knows that he is innocent. He would have never hurt Merrin. Never. Not like that. She was the love of his life. Even if their relationship did fall on some rough times shortly before she was found dead. But most people think he is guilty. Even certain members of his family question his innocence, he comes to discover, thanks to the power of the horns. A power he certainly did not ask for but which he comes to realize may be able to help him find the person responsible for Merrin’s death. Universitas Sumatera Utara 23 Before Merrin dies, she has written a letter to Iggy. This is the content of the letters section: “Dear Ig, you will never read this while I’m alive. I’m not sure I want you to read it even if I’m dead. I guess I don’t mind. The sort of cancer I have is the same that struck my sister down, a sort known to run in families.Id ’ust as soon skip all that, thanks. But I don’t know how to do it yet, how to die. I’m afraid if I tell you I’m sick, you will give up your future ans ask to marry me, and I will be weak and say yes, and then you’ll be shackled to me. You don’t know how hard it is not to talk about things with you. I can hurt you just enough to push you away. I’m not sure I really neeed to write so much. Probably could’ve saved myself a lot of effort and just copied out the first message I ever sent you, flashing you with my cross. US. That says most of it. Here’s the rest: I love you, Iggy Perrish. Your girl, Merrin Williams.” Horns 2010: 374 Horns is several stories rolled into one. At its heart, it is a detailed account of Ig’s physical and spiritual transformation into something demonic. It is also a revenge tale as Ig unravels the mystery of Merrin’s death and sets out to enact his vengeance upon the killer. It is also a love story told in flashbacks that reveal, almost poetically at times, the fairytale romance that Ig and Merrin once shared.

3.3 Love