Essay Questions

Why did Jacob's career begin to falter?

After enjoying modest success after the release of his previous novel, Jacob was not able to produce or publish any work of merit. In fact, Jacob was scarcely able to write anything at all. Obviously, writers who aren't able to produce anything begin to lose fans and begin to falter in their careers. But Jacob's woes stop after one of his students tells him about a story which would produce a guaranteed bestseller. After Jacob uses that story, he produces the bestseller, and his career is improved tremendously.

Why does Jacob decide to plagiarize his student's novel?

One day, Jacob overhears one of his students bragging that he has come up with the story to a novel which will be an overnight bestseller. Intrigued, but skeptical because he doesn't like the student, Jacob doesn't believe his student until he hears the plot of the novel. When Jacob hears that his student has died, presumably without ever completing his novel, he appropriates his student's story idea and starts to write a novel. He does this because he is sick of being unable to write, sick of not being published, and perhaps most importantly, sick of being unappreciated. Ultimately, Jacob plagiarized from his student and creates a novel that is both financially and critically successful, both things which he hoped for when he plagiarized the novel in the first place.

How did the emailer know that Jacob plagiarized the story for his novel?

Despite the fact that Jacob thought that his student had originated the idea for what became Jacob's novel, it quickly becomes clear to him that the story idea did not come from Jacob's student. In fact, the story idea came from someone else - likely the person who emailed Jacob and told him that he had stolen the story for his book.