Compare and Contrast: ‘Always a Motive’ and ‘Gentlemen, Your Verdict’ Essay

Recently Ive read two very good short stories constantly a causative (by Dan Ross) and Gentlemen, Your Verdict (by Michael Bruce). Always a Motive is about a young man, named Joe Manetti, who is accused of kidnapping. Gentlemen, Your Verdict is about five men who are questioned about the murder of sixteen crewmembers. While both Always a Motive and Gentlemen, Your Verdict are written in third person and pull at the readers emotions, Always a Motives theme is how people slope to see affairs only from one perspective and things behind change in an instant while Gentlemen, Your Verdicts theme focuses on the justification of murder in authorized circumstances. Gentlemen, Your Verdict is a story that teaches us that sometimes in life we have to kill, or let someone die to ensure the survival of others.In this story Lieutenant-Commander Oram (whos in charge of the submarine) is forced to play god when his submarine goes down. There is only enough air for two days and hand all over w ont come until five days after their oxygen supply will run out. Lieutenant-Commander Oram would rather let some of his crew exsert than have them all die. But he has a hard choice to make who will be the ones to survive, which I believe is also a objet dart of the theme. He makes a solemn choice to kill sixteen men, including himself, to save the resilients of the five married men on-board because they have a wife and possibly in time children that would live sorrowfully if their bring was gone. This statement is turned around in Always a Motive, where a father loses his son and wife and is forced to live a miserable life alone. Joe Manetti was a father to a little boy and a happy husband, but tragedy struck when his son was ran over and killed by a truck.After that Joes life fell apart his wife left him, he doesnt work anymore, he barely eats, and he runs away from his problems by driving , driving for however long until he feels okay. One day during one of his driving spells he comes back from getting groceries and finds a baby on his backseat. He finds a note on the baby saying he belonged to the Millers. Joe takes care of the babe and brings him home to a worried father but he suddenly finds himself getting questioned about kidnapping the Miller boy. Now, the inspector who questions him finds out Joes story and he feels for Joe but he knows that when theres people like Joe involved (Tigers of the Snow p109), people whohave lost their children, they usually are the culprits.Abruptly an expressway toll station worker comes purpose an alibi for Joe, saying that at the time the Miller boy was kidnapped Joe was at the toll. This reveals the themes of the story how people tend to see things only from one perspective and things can change in an instant. The inspector only saw the side of Joe that made him a kidnapper and suddenly Joe is an unsuitable kidnapper. But there is one thing that lacks from Joes story, his motive for returning the Miller boy with out the help of the police. But the man who lost his boy only wanted to see the man who free-base his. The moment that Joe says this is one of the most heartbreaking pieces of literature that I have read. Both Always a Motive and Gentlemen, Your Verdict have their moments where, as a reader, you feel for the characters. However different these stories are, they both pull at the readers heartstrings.