Title: A kiss before dying
Author: Ira Levin Summary Dorothy is pregnant, but her boyfriend doesn't want to keep the baby. That's because if she would get married, she would got disinherited by her father and that was the only reason why he was with her. He gave her pills, but she doesn't take them, because she wants to keep the baby and get married. He decides to tell Dorothy that they will go to get married. On the day of the marriage they go to the Municipal Building and they go to the roof for fun. When Dorothy sat on the wall of the roof, he pushed her off. Dorothy's sister Ellen Kingship does not believe what they say about Dorothy committed suicide. She decides to go to Blue River to find out what really happened. She goes with an excuse to the headmaster of Stoddard, to find out what the names are of the handsome guys with blond hair and blue eyes in Dorothy's English class. There a two guys: Gordon Gant and Dwight Powell. First she goes to Gordon's house, but he isn't the one. Then she goes to Dwight. He isn't the one either, but he knows that Dorothy was seeing another guy from her English class and he has got his adress somewhere. Together they went to Dwight's house and Dwight went upstairs to look for the adress, but when he was upstairs he got shot by Ellen's boyfriend Bud Corliss. Bud tells Ellen that Dwight wanted to kill her. Bud and Ellen go away in a car and near a restaurant Bud shoots Ellen, because she gets suspicious. Bud went with of book of Ellen to Ellen's sister Marion Kingship to get in touch with her. After a little while they were going steady and they decide to get married. A few days before the wedding, Gordon Gant went to Leo Kingship. Gordon tries to convince Leo that Bud has something to do with Ellen's, Dorothy's and Dwight's dead. Leo Lingship tells this to Marion, but she doesn't believe him. Gordon breaks into Bud's house in Menasset and he finds a box with brochures from Kingships Copper and other evidence that Bud is the perpetrator. Gordon goes back to Leo Kingship and they show the evidence to Marion, and now she believes them. Two days before the marriage Leo, Marion, Dwight and Bud go to the smelter. When Leo, Dwight and Bud were watching the copper on the catwalk, Leo asked Bud how he got Dorothy to write the good-bye note. Bud was getting nervous. They say that they will throw him in the copper if he doesn't confess. Three minutes later Bud tells them how he got Dorothy to write the note, but he turns and he jumps in the copper. Marion, Leo and Gordon went home. Questions A The story is told by the alknowing narrator. The narrator is using he and she and the names of maincharacters. "We do have a choice, Dorrie,' he said" (page 11, line 29) "Ellen gazed blankly at the door, wondering whether or not Gant had believed her" (page 107, lines 29-30) You also know that the narrator is telling the story, because you get to know the thoughts of all the characters. By example: "I don't care,' she said earnestly" (page 10, line 25) "Baby, I love you. I wouldn't let you take anything that might hurt you" (page 11, line 29)
B The story takes place in the fifties. When Dorothy was dead, her father wrote al letter to Ellen Kingship and the date of that letter was March 5th, 1951. The story takes place in Blue River, Iowa, where Dorothy and Bud are going to school. "He finally chose Stoddard University in Blue River, Iowa...In his sophomore year het met Dorothy Kingship" (page 18-19, lines 30-3) The story also takes place in New York, where Marion and Leo Kingship live. "Then they began to talk again; about how many things there were to do in New York" (page 174, lines 30-31-32) "The cab, at his direction, departed from its course so that Mrs Corliss, who had never been to New York before, might see Times Square at night" (page 200, lines 27-28-29) C The story lasts one year and eight months. The story begins when Dorothy is pregnant and that is around April. She had loaned in April a belt from Annabelle Koch, because ze was getting married and they were going to get married because Dorothy was pregnant. "I am the young woman who loaned a belt to your daughter last April" (page 81, lines 8-9) It ends when Bud jumps in a vat with copper in the smelter of Leo Kingship and that is on 27 December 1951, because Marion and Bud were going to get married on 29 December 1951 and two days before the marriage they would go to the smelter. "Leo Kingship returned to his apartment at ten o'clock on Wednesday night, having worked late inorder to compensate for some of the lost hours Christmas had entailed" (page 208, lined 1-2-3) This was the Wednesday before the marriage and Bud and Marion say: "We'll have to get up early tomorrow...A smelter must be a filthy place" (page 211, lines 29t/m33) D The novel is structured like this: Chapter 1 Dorothy: Introduction, the real story starts. Bud goes with Dorothy and kills her. There is also a flash-back of Bud's youth. Chapter 2 Ellen: The story how it continiues without any flash-backs. Bud goes with Ellen and kills her. Chapter 3 Marion: The story how it continues without any flash-backs. Bud goes with Marion and kills himself. The story begins when Dorothy is pregnant. There are a few flash-backs about Bud's youth. "He was born in Menasset, on the outskirts of Fall River, Massachussets; the only child of a father who was an oiler in one of the Fall River textile mills and a mother who sometimes had to take in sewing when the money ran low" (page 13, lines 8t/m11) The structure adds nothing special to the novel. The only thing is the flash-back, cause of that you know what happened to Bud in his youth. E The titel of the book A kiss before dying has everything to do with the things that happen in the book. He only loves the three sisters for the money they would inhire, but when something happened so that they wouldn't get the money from their father he killed them. I don't know exactly what A KISS has to do with it. Probably it has something to do with it because Bud loved the girls for their money and when your in love, you kiss. F I think the kernal passage of this novel is a young men who wants to get rich without any hard work and if it didn't went the way he wanted he killed the woman who loved him. "His plans had been running so beautifully, so goddamned beautifully, and now she was going to smash them all. Hate erupted and flooded through him, gripped his face with jawaching pressure. That was all right though; the lights were out. And she, she kept on sobbing weakly in the dark, her cheek pressed against his bare chest, her tears and her breath burning hot. He wanted to push her away" (page 9, lines 1t/m 8)
G No, this story doesn't have a deaper meaning. It is only a very exiting story that fascinates peoples and I think that that is also the reason why Ira Levin wrote this book, only to amuse people. Maybe Bud shooting a Jap has a littlebit of a deeper meaning. Maybe he doesn't have any fear to kill now because of that. "Quite slowly, he squeezed the trigger. He did not move with the recoil. Insensate to the kick of the butt in his shoulder, he watched attentively as a black-red hole blossomed and swelled in the chest of the Jap. The little man slid clawing to the jungle floor. Bird screams were like a handful of coloured cards thrown into the air. After looking at the slain enemy for a minute or so, he turned and walked away. His step was as easy and certain as when he had crossed the stage of the auditorium after accepting his diploma" (page 16, lines 5t/m14) H Most of all I identify myself with Ellen Kingship. That is because I would also want to know what happened to Dorothy if she was my sister. And I would also like to have her perseverance to know what has happened. "I won't be wasting my time, because I'll never know until I've tried, and until I try I'll never have a moment's peace" (page 84, lines 12-13-14) I I think the most notable of this novel is that it's a very exiting story, because the name of the perpetrator isn't mentioned in the beginning of the novel. You didn't know that Bud was the perpetrator till he killed Ellen Kingship. Another notable thing of this story is thay it could also be a story that really happened, and I think it is also notable that a story that was written in 1954 still is very populair to read in 1999. J Yes, I am satisfied with the end of the story. Bud Corliss deserved to die. But if he hadn't died, there could have been a sequel of A kiss before dying. It was a very exiting end, because you didn't expect that Bus Corliss would jump in the copper. K I really liked this story, because it was very realistic and exiting. "For one frozen instant, as his hands shifted from cupping her heels to a flat grip on the soles of her shoes, their eyes met, stupefied terror bursting in hers, a cry rising in her throat. Then, with all his strenght, he pushed against her fear-rigid legs. Her shriek of petrified anguish trailed down into the shaft like a burning wire. He closed his eyes. The scream died. Silence, then a god-awful deafening crash" (pages 67-68, lines 34t/m39 en 1-2) It could also have happened in the real world.