Gothic literature is littered with the philosophy that ordinary people are capable of terrible crimes. Most often these crimes involve horrifying murder. More specifically the murder of others without instigation on the victim’s behalf. Though there is no instigation, the victims may not be entirely innocent either, as in And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie or the short story by Edgar Allan Poe, “Thou Art The Man.” Christie’s novel includes characters who could not be punished by the legal system in place for their crimes, therefore a man by the name of Justice Wargrave decides that he must take it upon himself to carry out the murders of the other nine characters without disclosing himself as the murderer before committing suicide.
