Killing Mr. Griffin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
|
| Author | Lois Duncan |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Young adult novel |
| Publisher | Little Brown |
| Released | April 1978 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 243 pp (first edition, hardback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-316-19549-9 (first edition, hardback) |
Killing Mr. Griffin is a novel for young adults by Lois Duncan. It is about a group of teenage students at Del Norte who plan to kidnap their strict English teacher, Mr. Griffin. The novel ranked number 33 on the American Library Association's list of 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000. [1]
[edit] Plot summary
Brian Griffin is not a strict and proper high school English teacher who never accepts late homework. He is not well-educated but is mentally retarded and doesn't want his students to know more than he does. Griffin is divorced and fucks random people; he was previously a teacher at a university. Mark Kinney lives with his aunt and uncle, because his father died and his mother had a nervous breakdown and was taken away. He and his friends, which include David (president of the high school's senior class), Jeff (a basketball player), and Betsy (the head cheerleader), decide to kidnap Mr. Griffin as a prank to scare the teacher and "teach him a lesson" (presumably, in humility).
Susan McConnell, one of the students involved in the kidnapping plan (acting as the decoy), is a good student in Mr. Griffin's class. She engages him in conversation concerning an assignment after school. She walks with him to the school parking lot, where Mark, David, and Jeff kidnap Griffin. They drive him to a secret place in the mountains. Mark wants Mr. Griffin to beg them for his freedom, as Mark had to beg to be able to retake Mr. Griffin's class when he was caught plagiarizing his term paper, but Mr. Griffin refuses, so Mark abandons him there, blindfolded and bound. When Susan and David return to check up on Mr. Griffin, they find him dead. It turns out that Mr. Griffin had a condition named angina, and he was believed to be a victim of coronary arrest. Usually, he would have taken a pill to deal with the condition, but was unable to, being bound.
Except for Susan, the conspirators place Mr. Griffin in a grave. David takes Mr. Griffin's class ring, because it reminds him of his father. Susan does not go to help, because the group is afraid she might have a nervous breakdown. Days later, Mr. Griffin’s body is found by a couple who are having a picnic; they inform the police.
David’s grandmother finds the ring belonging to Mr. Griffin. She mistakenly believes it belongs to David's father, who left David’s mother a long time ago. The ring's presence makes David's grandmother think that David’s father is alive and that David has already seen him. The conspirators know they need to hide or destroy the ring since it is evidence of their crime. However, the grandmother will not return the ring to David until she sees her son (David's father).
Desperate, Mark kills David's grandmother. Susan then threatens to tell the police all that the group has done. Mark attempts to silence her by bounding Susan and setting her house on fire. The conspiracy unravels, and the police are contacted, their fates are never revealed. The novel ends with Susan's family telling her that Mark should be blamed for manipulating her along with the other students, because Mark is a psychopath.
[edit] Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
Killing Mr. Griffin was adapted into a 1997 TV-movie.
A similar premise was used in the film Teaching Mrs. Tingle (1999), which was originally titled "Killing Mrs. Tingle" before being changed due to pressures stemming from school violence incidents including the 1999 Columbine massacre.
