The Conspirator - Essay Example

The Conspirator” The Conspirator is a film directed by Robert Redford  in The screenplay of this movie was written by James D. Solomon. The theme of this movie was the conspiracy behind former American president Abraham Lincoln’s murder. Even though five people were involved in the actual conspiracy of the assassination of Lincoln, this movie gives more focus to the female conspirator Mary Suratt. It should be noted that Mary Suratt was the first woman in American history to get capital punishment.

Evan Rachel Wood acted as Mary Suratt in this movie while actors such as James McAvoy, Robin Wright, Justin Long, Jonathan Groff, etc handled different roles in this movie (The Conspirator (2011)- Trailers). This paper discusses the conspirators involved in this plot in general and the role of Mary Suratt in particular. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865. He was the first president in American history who faced assassination. Lincoln was assassinated at a time when American civil war was in its closing periods.

At the time of assassination, Lincoln was watching a play at Fords Theatre in Washington, along with his wife. The major conspirator of Lincoln’s assassination was a stage actor called John Wilkes Booth. He has planned this murder in company of Lewis Paine, George Atzerodt, David Herold, and Mary Surratt. Actually, the conspirators planned to murder the secretary of state and the vice president along with Lincoln. Pain and Herold had assigned the duty of killing the secretary of states while George Atzerodt had the duty of killing the vice president.

However, they succeeded in murdering Lincoln alone even though Paine shot the secretary of state. The major objective of this mass murder attempt was to destabilize the American government which took serious actions to end civil war and also to end racial discrimination. All the conspirators were arrested even though Booth suffered serious injury while attempting to escape and later died in the police custody. All the other four conspirators were hanged. Mary Suratt was an American boarding house owner who was accused for participating in Lincoln’s murder conspiracy.

She was hanged and became the first woman in American history to suffer execution Mary Suratt’s involvement in the conspiracy was unbelievable to the people who know her. She was highly religious in nature and was not at all a woman of aggressive nature or intend. She was simple and behaved politely with others. However, her involvement in this conspiracy was proved beyond doubt after the trial of her tenant John M. Lloyd. It was proved that Booth approached Mary on the very same day afternoon and asked her inform her tenant to keep the guns and ammunition ready to be picked up later that evening.

Mary failed to inform this message to the police, which clearly suggests that she, was in favor of this murder If a person deliberately stays away from informing the police about the occurrence of a possible crime, he could be punished along with the actual criminals. In other words, helping the criminals knowingly is a punishable crime not only in America, but also in other parts of the world. Mary did exactly that and criminal justice system has not shown any mercy towards her. To conclude, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth.

Four others; Lewis Paine, George Atzerodt, David Herold, and Mary Surratt took part in the conspiracy along with Booth. Even though all the four male members of the conspirator gang had direct involvement in the murder or murder attempt, Mary had only the indirect involvement in the conspiracy. She was alleged to help the major conspirators. All the conspirators were hanged except Booth who was shot dead while attempting to escape. Works Cited “The Conspirator(2011)- Trailers”. Web. 24 October 2012