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A KISS BEFORE DYING

By lra Levin

CHARACTER DESCRIPTION

Dorothy She is a 19-year-old student from Stoddard College. She is a rich girl who has two sisters, named Ellen and Marion and she is the youngest. She seems to be insecure, but very nice. She is also naive and unaware of what is going on around her. She also seems to be a possessive person, because her early life was hard for her and her two sisters. Dorothy’s parents got divorced, when she was just about eight years old. After the divorce, their mother fell ill and died. Her father Leo was not a kind, loving father. She does well at school but she is a little ignorant of reality, and how things work. She thinks everything will fix by itself; for example, her pregnancy. She also thinks that getting married and established is important. But she is eventually killed by Bud, the man who she loves and pretends to love her.

Burton ‘BUD’ Corliss He is a 24-year-old young man, is 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 becomes the most important person in Dorothy´s life. His father is dead now, and his mother is still interested in his welfare. At the age of 18 he starts to think that all women are like his mother. Lots of women get interested in him, but not for a long time so he starts to hate women. Still he is still happy to spend their money. He was Dorothy’s, and later Ellen’s, boyfriend. He is an honour student, a war hero, a smart beautiful man that all young ladies fall for and the boy that all mothers would have loved to have as a son-in-law. Popular and liked by everyone, deep inside he is not a good man. He goes through his life always choosing the easiest solutions and wants to make money on an easy way, like getting them from a father-in-law. To achieve his goal, he even kills three people. He pretends to be lovely and trustworthy but he is mean and greedy. He is a murderer and psychopath who kills people without feeling regret.

Ellen Kingship She is Dorothy’s sister, the middle sister of the Kingship family. She studies at Caldwell College, in the state of Wisconsin. She is different from her sister, she is adventurous and likes taking risks. She does not believe that her sister committed suicide so she dares to travel to Blue River to chase her sister´s murderer. She is very clever, because she manages to find out that

Dorothy has been murdered but she is a little reckless. She investigated her sister´s murder oblivious of what could happen to her. Thus, she is also killed by Bud. Marion Kingship The third sister was a student at Columbia University but then she got a job in an advertising agency. She is different from the other two. She is the most intellectual, the most mature and the wiser of the three sisters. She enjoys going to museums and exhibitions. She is not particularly beautiful as Ellen or Dorothy but she is smarter and more cautious than her sisters. She is very shy and does not have much self-esteem. She has never fallen in love before she meets Bud Corlis, but she is the one who finally clarifies the three murders together with Gordon Grant.

Leo Kingship He is the father of the three sisters. He seems to be a hard man, because he never forgives people, if he thinks that they have done something wrong. He is a very busy rich businessman who owns a big company which produces copper. His wife died after they got divorced. He does not seem to be much interested or involved in his daughters´ lives but helps uncover his two daughters´ murders.

Gordon Gant He is a fine handsome blond English-student. He is very busy because he is the disc jockey in Blue River’s radio program but he gets involved in the murders and helps Marion solve them.

Dwight Powell He is a pleasant quiet student at Stoddard University, who is in Dorothy´s English class and becomes her boyfriend for two months. He is one of Ellen’s suspects but he is killed trying to help her solve her sister´s murder.