Explication

When reading the 36 dramatic situations the one that immediately stood out to me was "self-sacrifice for an ideal". The explication that goes along with this particular dramatic situation is "a hero; and ideal; a creditor or person/thing sacrificed". This one stood out to me because of the whole nature of the law enforcement career, police officers, lawyers, and detectives are constantly putting their lives, their time, and their sanity on the line for the greater good: the ideal that justice will be served, and it will be served through them. The protagonist of 4o Words for Sorrow does exactly that, he sacrifices not only himself, but his family, and friends to take down the Windigo Killer, a murderer who prayed on run away teens.

The heroes in 4o Words for Sorrow are obviously Detectives Lise Delorme, and John Cardinal, more specifically John Cardinal. I am choosing John Cardinal as the main protagonist, or hero, in this novel because he is the character that the majority of the novel is in the point of view of. The reader learns about more about his personal situation then any other character, where as you only experience the character of Delorme in the police, work setting. She would not be the obvious candidate for the role of "hero" in the "self sacrifice for an ideal" dramatic situation because you do not get to learn about all of the personal sacrifices she is making in order to take down the murderers.

The ideals that Detective Cardinal is striving for are justice, and a safe community. He puts everything on the line to take down the murderer, to restore the peace in Algonquin Bay. Once the body of Katie Pine was found and the case was re-opened the media was immediately alerted and the case became a very public one. All of us know from experience the way that a very publicized crime can affect a community. In the summer of 2007 there was a nation wide search for Jesse Imeson, the murderer of an elderly couple in Goderich Ontario. I personally remember the weeks that he was on the loose, and I know how people reacted the this incident. My mom was sure to remind me every morning, when she would take me to babysit, that if I were to go out with the kids that I stuck to busy streets where there were people around so that nothing could happen to any of us. When dangerous criminals are on the loose it really disturbs people and makes them become very protective. The ideal of a safe community is a very relevant one to this story. The ideal of justice is another important one because of the nature of crime. The police are there to keep us safe, and they do this by making sure justice is served. This is the lesser of the two ideals because this is a detective novel, not one that revolves around the legal system, however it is still a prominent one.

The sacrifice that John Cardinal is making throughout this novel is his personal sanity, and not only his, but his families safety. The safety sacrifice becomes very important in the end of the novel, after Eric has drowned in the bay. It seems that the entire fiasco is over, because they do not realize that Eric had an accomplice. A photo of Cardinals home is published in the Algonquin Bay newspaper. Eddie sees where he lives and "crashes" her car near his home and poses as a "damsel in distress". When Cardinal goes out to help her, she attempts to kill him, luckily Cardinal had already phoned 911 to send an ambulance to the scene of the crash. Then of course, just in the nick of time, Delorme shows up and takes Eddie down. Cardinals safety was very much put at risk in his line of work, and had Cardinals daughter and wife still lived at the home, their lives would be put at risk as well.

I chose the "self-sacrifice for the ideal" situation as the most appropriate explication of 40 Words for Sorrow because of the enormous risks that people in the law enforcement line of work put themselves up to every day.