The Wanderer

No longer able to endure the misery of the cold and hunger of self-imposed homelessness on the streets of Woolwich, London, Don plots a means of escape from his depressed desperate plight, one that leads him to commit two brutal murders. After first killing a miserly pawnbroker with a stolen butcher’s knife, he is driven to turn the same weapon on the pawnbroker’s sister when she stumbles upon him attempting to loot her dead brother’s hidden money box. Don is soon apprehended by the police, although not initially for the crimes carried out, but because his own sister has reported him missing. He undergoes a series of interrogations and each time is released, but due to the pain of self-inflicted torture later returns voluntarily to make a full confession. Although he is driven to do this because of profound felt guilt in the case of the murdered pawnbroker’s sister, viewing this as tragic loss of human life, he is morbidly without remorse for the killing of the pawnbroker himself. In prison there are signs of a move towards becoming open to the teachings of the New Testament scriptures; despite this, however, Don is still unable to acknowledge that the killing of the pawnbroker involved actual murder, the act itself remaining for him merely the elimination of a disease-ridden insect from which the world has been cleansed.

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Rafbók: 17 maj 2021