The Paragon story

ahh1x20 · 1963-02-09

A man comes up with the solution to dealing with his cold-hearted wife. Directed by: Jack Smight. Story by: Alfred Hayes (teleplay), Rebecca West (story).

13 total · 7 major · 6 minor

Theme	Level	Motivation
coping with a problematic person	major	Alice's family and friends were fed up with her owing to her spiteful nature.
coping with an overbearing jerk	major	Alice is a woman who delights in revealing hurtful truths, saying other hurtful things, and spreading hurtful rumors. During the later dialogues between Alice and John it becomes apparent that Alice was she doing things to hurt people and that she does so with ill-concealed glee.
human nature	major	A point of the story was that Janice reminded people of uncomfortable truths that they would rather not be reminded of.
husband and wife	major	John Pemberton poisoned his incorrigibly spiteful wife, Alice, with hexitone-laced hot chocolate.
shrew character	major	Alice is a woman who delights in revealing hurtful truths, saying other hurtful things, and spreading hurtful rumors. During the later dialogues between Alice and John it becomes apparent that Alice was she doing things to hurt people and that she does so with ill-concealed glee.
spouse murder	major	John administers a poison which will put Alice into a terminal coma.
wicked wife stereotype	major	The title is an allusion to John, who is arguably a paragon of virtue even as he murdered his cold-hearted Janice: He did so to protect others from her poisonous intrigues. Janice, a sadistic rumor-mongerer, was hated by all.
aunt and niece	minor	Alice encouraged her young niece, Betty, to become a Christian missionary when she grew up.
coping with a terminal illness	minor	Alice tormented a doctor who suffered from chronic pneumonia and knew very well that his smoking and coughing was slowly killing him.
master and servant	minor	Janice tormented the housekeeper by unjustly reprimanding her several times.