Analytical Essay - Three is a Lucky Number PDF

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Analytical Essay - Three is a Lucky Number The short story is about a man called Ronald Torbay, who is a middle-aged man. Ronald is about to prepare his third murder. The first two murders had same patterns as the third planned one. He uses a false name and goes on a holiday where no one knows him, and there he meets Edyth who is a middle-aged, shy woman with a lot of money. Just like the two women before her. He asks Edyth to marry him, and she becomes his wife and therefore his third potential victim. His plan is very simple because he had already done it two twice before where he gets married and then his wives die by "accident", but will he succeed? or is his third wife a bit smarter than he thinks?

We can tell from the story, that Ronald is a straight-forward person because he can impress any girl and charm her. This quote from the story defines it very well "His methods were old-fashioned and heavily romantic, and within a week she was hopelessly infatuated” (P. 90 Ll. 22-23). He is also very intelligent and does everything perfect to the tiniest detail. He is aware of his cleverness and thinks that he is wiser than most humans. We can see that in this quote ”He was certain he was infinitely more clever than most human beings but he did not dwell on the fact and as soon as he felt the old thrill at the sense of his power welling up inside him, he quelled it firmly” (P. 88 Ll. 9-12). We can also tell from the story, that Ronald doesn’t care about his looks, but knows that women are drawn to him because of his charm.”Even Ronald Torbay did not like his own mouth” (P. 88 Ll. 21). As we know his career in homicide, means that he is a cold-blooded killer and that he saw his two wives as subjects, and also the third one. “He always thought of his wives as ‘subjects’”(P. 90, Ll.89). He does that so he doesn’t get emotionally affected because then his plan wouldn’t succeed. He is good at giving attention and knows how to care. “Ronald was careful not to let her toes touch the ground. He devoted his entire attention to her and exactly five weeks from the day on which they first met, he married her at the registry office of the town where they were both strangers.” (P. 90, Ll 31-34).

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The story starts in medias res, where we immediately know what the story is about from the first sentence. “Ronald Frederick Torbay was making preparations for his third murder” (P.88, Ll. 1-2). In the whole story, we are at Ronald and Edyth’s apartment. We get to know about his background of his first to victims, and on how he knew that Edyth was his next victim at some flashbacks in the story. “From the moment he had first sent Edyth, sitting alone at the little table under the window in a seaside hotel dining-room, he had known that she was to be his next subject” (P.90, Ll. 6-8). When we get to read the letter Edyth wrote to Ronald, we can read that she has been out of the apartment to meet the police. She starts to suspects him because of his fussing about the bathroom and his behavior in general. The point of no return is when he reads the letter and gets haggard eyes from the letter. He is in deep shock because he was expecting a smooth murder, where he has a bubble bath ready for Edyth. He has obviously underestimated Edyth and has failed as a murderer. At the end of the story we have an open ending because we only know that someone is coming towards him, but not what is going to happen to him. We can guess that he is obviously going to prison. “In the hush, he heard a sudden clatter as the back door burst open and heavy footsteps raced through the hall and up the stairs towards him.” (P. 98, Ll. 26-28) It turned out that Edyth was a clever woman, that has been doing some research on Ronald's life, and that Ronald has failed and thought that she was just like his two earlier wives. It turned out that she was smarter than Ronald, and now his career in homicide has ended.

A theme in this short story could be lies and deception because Ronald is a serial killer who didn’t marry any of his wives because of love. He only married them because they didn’t have families and because of their money. His thrill of killing and economic motivation means that he is a sociopath who finds joy in finding vulnerable women who he can seduce, deceit and lie to, and when they feel special, appreciated and marries him, he takes the opportunity to kill them and leave with the money. Then he moves on to the next one.

From Edyth’s perspective, another theme could be “survival”, because Edyth was smart enough to survive by early figuring out Ronald´s plan, or at least she was lucky enough to survive. If Edyth did not take action in time, she would be just another number on his list. And three would then not be that lucky a number. In fact, imagine how lucky no. three turned out to be because not only Edyth was lucky, but also the female victims who would be found and murdered by Ronald, if he

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had not been stopped. That is if he really was stopped, or arrested, as we do not know for sure what happened.

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