Essay Questions

The police chief’s unwillingness to prosecute the Cartwrights despite the fact that he is utterly convinced of their guilt is explained by his assertion near the end that “It’s not what people do that really matters, it’s what they are.” What is this the fundamental paradox of this philosophy that actually proves just the opposite of what he suggests?

According to the chief’s own words, what the Cartwrights are is murderers. And, of course, what they did was commit murder. So his attempt to impose an epistemological gap being the state of mere being and the conscious decision to act is utterly specious and without merit. The paradox that makes this position not only intellectually but morally untenable is that what people are is entirely a subjective construct determined by others. And how do people arrive at the perspective informing that construct? By what they’ve done. Therefore, what people are is entirely dependent upon they’ve done and what they’ve done cannot be disconnected what they are. His rationale for a morally bankrupt decision might just as well as have been “It’s not what people are that really matters, it’s what they do.” Both assertions are, also paradoxically, equally true and untrue.

How is the story a microcosmic re-enactment of colonial imperialism?

The opening paragraph makes it clear that the island on which the story is set has at various times been ruled by the Dutch, the Portuguese and the British. This imposition of outsider rule has been going on so long that many of the native islanders have lost the ability to converse in their own native tongue, substituting instead a hybrid of the various influences. The story of the island is, therefore, one of new arrivals constantly pushing out those already in power and assuming their leadership role with the result being the production of a culture and history that is divorced from that which came before. When Cartwright arrives, he plays out the very same narrative: he usurps the position of his friend by stealing first his wife and then his life, finding time to produce a brand child for the family with absolutely no genetic connections to what was already in place when he arrived. The key, of course, is that nobody seems to mind the ugliness required to pull of this coup.

Who is the villain of “Footprints in the Jungle” and why?

The most obvious answer, of course, is Cartwright who it seems was the party personally responsible for actually committing the murder. The future Mrs. Cartwright, however, she was carrying the baby of a man not her husband and the concerted effort by Maugham to make her talent at shuffling playing cards a symbol strongly suggests she also possesses a great talent for shuffling inconveniences in her life to become more convenient. So, there is a valid argument to be made in favor of her being the one who actually conceived—pardon the pun---the idea of the murder as the only convenient way to explain away why that baby did not seem to favor his father very much. So if she was the one who came up with the idea, but he was the one actually acted upon it, who is the real villain or do they both share equally? The answer is both share equally, but neither are the actual bad guy. Reprehensible as their motivation for murder may be, at least there is a solid motivation to do the thing which made them what they are. Using his own justification against him, what the police chief is is a villain; not because of what he did, but because of what he did not do. And it is what he did not do that makes him what he is.