The Small Assassin story
A paranoid new mother suspects that her baby is trying to kill her. Directed by: Tom Cotter. Story by: Ray Bradbury.
13 total · 1 choice · 7 major · 5 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me | choice | People understandably did not take Alice seriously when she kept insisting that her newborn was trying to kill her. In the end, however, the infant lethally electrocuted her as she laid asleep in her bed. |
| acute anxiety | major | Alice became increasingly fearful that her newborn was somehow trying to kill her. When she explained herself to physician, he surely took her to be suffering from a paranoid delusion. |
| caring for a baby | major | Alice and David brought their sinister newborn son home from the hospital and were taking care of him. |
| facing a genius adversary | major | Alice Leiber struggled to convince her physician that she was in a mortal struggle for her life with her genius infant son, who was out to kill her as revenge for pushing him out from the womb into this cold and unwelcoming world. In the end she lost the battle and the doctor in question approached the infant with a scalpel in hand, leaving the viewer to ponder what his intentions were. |
| hatred | major | Alice said that she hated her mother for expelling her, as a fetus, from the warm comfort of the womb. She speculated that her own newborn felt the same way about her. At the conclusion of the story Alice was indeed murdered by her infant son. |
| husband and wife | major | David and Alice Leiber's lives were turned upside down when Alice became convinced that their newborn was somehow out to kill her. |
| matricide | major | In the end, Alice was callously murdered by her infant son as revenge for having push out from the womb into this cruel and unwelcoming world. |
| the desire for vengeance | major | Alice struggled to convince her physician of the theory she had come to be very certain of: That her infant son was a genius (and acrobatic prodigy) who lay in his crib and plotted clandestine ways to kill her as revenge for pushing him out from the womb into this cold and unwelcoming world. Towards the end it is strongly implied that the baby had, indeed, been scurrying around the house at lightning speed during the night and setting traps for his parents. Among these infant nocturnal activities counted short-circuiting a power cord. |
| creative writing | minor | In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing. |
| giving birth | minor | The story opens with Alice giving birth in the hospital. |