Jack the Ripper Source Analysis Coursework

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What can You Learn From Source A about the Murder of Martha Tabram and Polly Nichols?

Firstly, the newspaper links the two murders by focusing on their similarities. They both took place ‘within the last month’, which implies that the murders were connected. Both victims were of very low social status, being ‘the poorest of the poor’, therefore the motive of each murder was unknown, since the victims had nothing to steal. As well as this, the article also highlights the brutality of the murders, purporting that the killer used ‘extraordinary violence’ in each case; it also states that the murders ‘startled London’ which demonstrates the shocking nature of the murders further.  However, since source A is a newspaper article, the information it provides must be taken with a pinch of salt, as newspapers tend to sensationalize their stories in order to gain a greater readership.


2) Does the Evidence of Source C Support the Evidence of Sources A and B about the Ripper Murders? Explain Your Answer.

Source C gives a very detailed account of the body of Elizabeth Stride.  It is quite objective and informative, merely stating observational facts. Whereas Sources A and B are more persuasive and speculative – they both harbour ideas about the nature of the murderer and his motives.

        Source        B speculates that the murderer has ‘considerable anatomical skill’. This view is partially supported by Source C – Dr Blackwell’s choice of the word ‘incision’ also implies that the murderer has skill. Additionally, Source C’s description of the cut makes the murderers intentions clear – he wants to instantly silence, and eventually kill his victim – with a swift cut across the windpipe. This supports the coroner’s view that the murderer makes ‘no meaningless cuts’.

        Both Sources A and B indicate that the way the victims were killed was exceptionally brutal. Source A refers to ‘extraordinary violence’ and Source B talks about the murderer ‘find[ing]…organs’. However Source C does not mention anything as lurid as the removal of organs, and the only violent act is the simple slitting of a throat – which, to me, is not violent to the extent that it is ‘extraordinary.’ Furthermore, the fact that the intended method of killing was a slit throat disagrees with the coroner’s assumption in Source B that the murderer could be ‘no mere slaughterer of animals’ – many animals are slaughtered with a quick, sharp cut along the throat, much like the one on Elizabeth Stride – so it could likely have been a slaughterer doing the work.

Source A, probably to arouse the sympathies of its readers, focuses greatly on the vulnerability of the victims. Source C, albeit tenuously, can be interpreted to support this view. The description of breath fresheners ‘wrapped in tissue paper’ found in Stride’s hand gives her personality. It makes her seem more feminine and innocent in the eyes of the reader, and therefore more vulnerable. The fact that ‘there was no money on the body’ could also support the newspaper article’s assertion that the victims were very poor. However this could also be interpreted adversely – it opens up to the possibility that Stride was robbed, because if the motive for the murder was theft, the killer would most likely have taken all the money on her person; whereas if there was no ‘motive in the shape of plunder’, there might have at least been a small amount of loose change on the body. To conclude, the nature of the murder described in Source C does not coincide very neatly with the murders in Sources A and B. There are some similarities, as discussed above, between the descriptions, but the points of contention are greater.

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3) How Useful Are Sources D and E in helping you to understand why the Ripper was able to avoid capture?

Elizabeth Long does not seem to have any ulterior motives for providing evidence – for instance, no reward was offered to her. However, the utility of her evidence to the police is very low, because she herself is unsure of its accuracy. She frequently uses phrases that denote uncertainty, such as ‘he seemed…’ throughout her testimony. Although her description was quite useless to the police, it is ...

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