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Ripper by Amy Carl Reeves

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In "Ripper" by Amy Carol Reeves, there is a secret group called the Conclave. The Conclave was made up of Dr. William Siddal, Max, Dr. Buck, Dr. Brown, Dr. Bartlett, and Reverend Perkins. This group was sanctioned by the Queen of England and they discovered the elixir of life which made them immortal. Their goal is to use their immortality to " ˜promote the greatest good for England'  (280), specifically the East End in this novel. In the East End there was a lot of crime and poverty and the Conclave felt it was necessary to bring attention to these problems. They went about this in an inappropriate manner, which was killing prostitutes. One of the many crimes that was happening in the East End was prostitution. Many of these prostitutes happened to be patients at Whitechapel, under the care of Dr. Bartlett. Surprisingly, Dr. Bartlett sanctioned for many of his patients to be murdered. The reasoning behind these prostitutes being killed is only to " ˜bring some attention to'  (280) the East End. Although these murders did "[whip]-up a public frenzy  (280) they did not solve any problems. The Conclave's goal was a great goal to work towards. The problem is how they went about achieving their goal. Murdering prostitutes got attention but having town meetings to talk about the crimes and ways to solve these problems would have been more civil. Abbie agreed in her thoughts that this was only a temporary solution when she said: I remembered Perkin's letter to the newspaper; I remembered the whipped-up public frenzy, the journalist frenzy ¦ the extra supplies, the news coverage, the money donations, the volunteers. Even the sensational flourish “ the organ mailed to the police. This kind of murder mystery would naturally enthrall a London public raised on penny-dreadful novels. This had all been planned. The lives of each victim had been taken for this purpose (280). These murders surely did bring a great deal of attention to

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