A Kiss Before Dying

First off all I would like to thank you for your attention. Today I’m going to talk about the novel “A Kiss Before Dying” by Ira Levin. In the first part of my talk, I’ll talk about the author and the book. Next, I’ll tell you about the main characters and I’ll give you a summary of the book. Finally I’ll read a passage from the book and I’ll give you my own opinion. Before I start I’ll briefly explain some important words regarding the book:

to get divorced- to end a marriage

diffident- shy and not wanting to make people notice you or talk about you

foolish- stupid

ambitious- if you want to be rich, successful or powerful you are ambitious

a suicide note- the message that somebody writes before they kill themselves

advertising agency- a company that helps you to sell your products

Municipal Building- the officials for a town of city have their offices there

About the author:

 Ira Levin is an American author of fiction thriller novels and he is also a playwright and songwriter. He was born on the 27th August, 1929 in New York City. He attended Drake University and he wrote plays for television. While he was spending two years at U.S. Army, he wrote scripts for army training films.

He wrote his first novel “A Kiss Before Dying” when he was 22 years old. The book won the Edgar Allen Poe Award, which made him very famous.

Ira Levin’s best novel is Rosemary’s Baby, which was made into a film as were his other novels A Kiss Before Dying, The Boys from Brazil and The Stepford Wives.

Main characters:

Burton ‘BUD’ Corliss is a 24-years-old young man, who seems to be very handsome and good-looking. His early life was not easy. He was born in the little town of Menasset, near Fall River, Massachusetts. His parents were very poor. His mother hated her husband because he never had a good job. Bud became the most important thing in her life. His father is dead now, and his mother is still only interested in him.  At the age of 18 he started to think that all women are like his mother. Lots of women were interested in Bud, but not for a long time. Now, he hates woman, but he is still happy to spend their money.

Dorothy Kingship is a 19-years-old student from Stoddard College. She has two sisters, named Ellen and Marion, but she is the youngest. She seems to be diffident, but very nice and sometimes also very foolish. She is a rich girl and very insecure. She also seems to be a possessive person, because her early life was hard for her and her two sisters. Dorothy’s parents get divorced, when she was just about eight years old. After the divorce, their mother felt ill and died. Her father Leo was not a kind, loving father.

Ellen Kingship is the middle sister of the three. She studies at Caldwell College, in the state of Wisconsin. She is very clever, because she found out that Dorothy was murdered. She is an ambitious and strange, but a very nice person.

Marion Kingship seems to be as foolish as her sister Dorothy, because she wanted to marry Ellen’s boyfriend after her death. She tastes in pictures, books and music. She was a student at Columbia University but then she got a job in an advertising agency.

Leo Kingship is the father of the three sisters. She seems to be a hard man, because he never forgive people, if he thinks that they did something wrong. He owns a big company which produces copper. He is very rich and he does not want her daughters to have an unmarried child. His wife died after they got divorced. 

Gordon Gant is a fine and handsome blond English-student. He is very busy because he is the disc jockey in Blue River’s radio program. He solved the case about the three murders.

Dwight Powell is a pleasant and quiet student at Stoddard University, who is Dorothy’s boyfriend for two month. He is in Dorothy’s English class and he also has a job at Folgers Coffee Shop in the town centre.

The story is divided into three parts and takes place in two different countries. The first two parts of the story take place in the Town of Blue River, in the state of Iowa. And the last part of the story takes place in New York. This novel is about a young man, who seems to be very handsome. While reading the story, you find out that the man, who is mentioned in the first part, is the same as Burton Corliss in the last parts.

Summary:

Dorothy is talking with her boyfriend about her pregnancy. The man plans to marry Dorothy, because she is the daughter of Leo Kingship. Leo is the owner of a big company which produces copper and the young man thinks of an exiting future for himself. Dorothy’s father would not be happy about the pregnancy, because he is a rich man and he does not want her daughter to have an unmarried child. The young man wants his girlfriend Dorothy to take some pills to cause an abortion. The pills do not work and so they decide to get married on Friday this week. All his dreams are interrupted and he thinks about another plan. He decides to kill Dorothy but everybody must think that she killed herself.

He gets arsenic powder and some empty gelatine capsules at Stoddard University’s Pharmacy Laboratory.

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