Patricia Cornwell's "Jack": First Impressions of "Case Closed" - Part 1
Published August 22, 2003
One of the great divides in logic is between inductive and deductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning looks first at facts and information. It draws its conclusions from those facts--just like Sherlock Holmes does. (And don't let Arthur Conan Doyle's language fool you. He got the label wrong for Holmes' "Science of Deduction"--which he should actually have termed the "Science of Induction").
Deductive reasoning begins with a general principle and applies it to an individual instance of that principle. The deductive process could be represented like this:
All men are mortal (general principle)
Socrates is a man (individual instance of principle).
Therefore, Socrates is mortal (the deductive conclusion).
Inductive reasoning argues up from the specific to the general. Deductive reasoning argues down from the general to the specific.
So let's take a look at the deductive process that leads Cornwell to conclude that negative material must have been excised from the sister's memoirs.
Her starting supposition is that Walter Sickert is Jack the Ripper. Now, we don't know whether she based this notion on an inductive process or whether she made an intuitive leap and somehow just knew he was the Ripper. But we can determine that this underlying supposition leads to the following line of deductive reasoning.
(Sickert is Jack the Ripper)
Jack the Ripper's sister would naturally write terrible things about her brother in her memoirs. (general principle)
The published memoirs of Jack the Ripper's sister do not contain terrible things about her brother. (individual instance)
Therefore, the terrible things that Jack the Ripper's sister must have written had to have been censored for publication. (deductive conclusion).
The conclusion is logical if we start with the supposition that Sickert is the Ripper (which, once again, is the very point that it's Cornwell's job to prove) and if we assume that he was an absolutely dreadful child and young man and that his sister would have wanted to write about how dreadful he was. (She, of course, would not have known he was the Ripper... just that he was a famous painter).
Can you see some of the issues here? And I haven't even gotten to the opening chapter yet. But, I'll be back in a couple of days to provide yet more analysis of Cornwell's argumentative strategies. Since she does have one of the more popular Ripper theories on the market today, it's certainly worthwhile for members of her potential audience to know how she is presenting the case, and whether the argument she presents stands up to analysis.
I also have to say that I have not gotten far into the book yet. She may settle down as she goes, and focus on fact, and even present a good case and a good argument. If that occurs, I'll be sure to report it. I mean, I have no dog in this fight... except a love of language and a distaste for seeing it used in order to manipulate an audience.
- Patricia Cornwell's "Jack": First Impressions of "Case Closed" - Part 1
- Published: August 22, 2003
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- Section: Books
- Filed Under: Books: Crime
- Writer: Cindy Collins Smith
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Comments on this articleComments
Thanks for the comment, Joe. I'll probably have another blog on the topic tomorrow!
I need a short 10 question interview about jck the ripper, can you help?
I have read the book and found it very nonconvincing as to whom she thinks the actual killer is, but I also found her book confussing and hard to follow.
By the time I had read to chapter 10 she had meandered of the topic completely with almost every page a different subject entirely. For example the chapter was about Medicine of the Courts yet almost the entire chapter was dedicated to everything else. She began with the Mary Ann Nichols inquest which was a great start but then she proceeded to ramble and jump from one thing to another with no warning and I am going to list the following examples from this very chapter.
1)Mary Ann Nichols inquest (100-102)
2)Ennui painting (102-103)
3)Royal conspiracy (103-105)
4)Death of Mr. Maybrick due to an overdose of arsenic and the wrongful conviction of his wife (105-107)
Now this one I would like to make a note of because it was a very good idea to acknowledge that there had been a falsefied diary but this had no reason to be in the chapter involving Medicine of the Courts and even if she believes it does just because Mrs. Maybrick was wrongfully convicted in a court it still gives no reason for her to have put it in the chapter.
5)Waltel and the killing of Mary Ann Nichols (107)
6)Dr. Llewellyn, Mann and Hatifield at the inquest (107-110)
This did have something to do with the chapter yet she gave it less then three pages of her time.
7)"Behind" the killing and what the dead say (110-112)
It went well with the chapter using forensics and the dead to explain a murder and the murderer but she should not have used modern references instead it would have been more appropriate to have used Jack the Rippers victims as her references since this book is of the 19th century and not the 21st.
8)The origin of the name "ripper" (112-113)
Again this should not have been here. Using this and why Sickert may have choosen it was good but not in this chapter. It would have been better suited if the chapter was on the psychological aspects of Sickert and the developement of the name and not Medicine of the Courts. And listing Shakespearean plays as a reference to how he may have come up with it was idiotic for what should have been the subject to this chapter.
One more little negative comment about this book other then her rambling and utter chaos is that in chapter 3 pg 15 she wrote and I quote "...a weekly allowance of twelve shillings..." but then in chapter 8 pg 81 and again I quote "His support of five shillings each week..." Both of these were about Mary Ann Nichols and her husband yet the information she gave is conflicting. She tried too hard to convince me of Sickert's guilt yet gave no fool proof evidence of that fact. She even admits in the first chapters that she barely knew of Jack the Ripper or that he killed prostitutes which is amazing for someone who works with forensics and murderers or even someone who has ever studied history. So how convincing can she be with all of these mistakes and utter ignorance surrounding her.
Thank you for reading this.
Desi Farhat
Just finished the book and am now scratching my head. Where was the evidence? Case still open.
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Good critical review. I'm interested in hearing more about it. I enjoyed her non-fiction work although I like the earlier novels better than the more recent ones.