In the first scene of Jumpers, someone murders Duncan McFee, an amateur gymnast and Professor of Logic at a British university. In the course of the play, various characters investigate the killing, inconclusively. As one of them observes, ``The truth ... is always an interim judgment. We will never even know for certain who did shoot McFee.''1
Nonetheless, Stoppard gives the play's audience (and its readers) evidence that reveals the identity and motive of the killer. Read the play attentively, collect and interpret the evidence, and present your conclusions: Who shot Duncan McFee? and why?
1 Stoppard, Tom. Jumpers. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1972. The quotation is from page 81.
Write up your answer and have it ready to turn in at the beginning of class on September 24. It should be legibly typed or set, double-spaced, with ample margins (I recommend an inch and a quarter at top, bottom, and sides), and printed single-sided. If it runs to more than one page, each page after the first should bear your surname and a page number in the upper right-hand corner.
I suggest that you will find it convenient to answer this question in about four hundred words, though I'll accept papers that are longer or shorter.
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http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/~stone/courses/stoppard/murder-mystery.xhtml
created September 16, 2002
last revised September 16, 2002