Ramon- Presumed Innocent

The entire movie is focused on the guilt of Rusty Sabich. Whether it is the guilt that he had a rather intense love affair with Carolyn Polhemus, the entire film is focused on guilty and not guilty. In the same light, Rusty is found accused in the murder and rape of his mistress. The irony of the situation is that Rusty can not comes to terms with his wife in this situation because he cannot bring himself to admit to this wife that he cheated on her. However, he really did not need to have that guilt of cheating on Barbara because she already had a hunch that he was cheating on her with Carolyn. Barbara did not want Carolyn around in Rusty’s life anymore, so she killed Carolyn with Rusty’s hammer. In terms of Rusty’s guilt and the irony it possesses, as said before, he was already guilty in the eyes of his wife. However, that guilt Rusty possessed never does leave him as he still grieves the loss of Carolyn. Within all of this guilt, I would like to take to opportunity to bring up a point I found while analyzing this prompt. I believe that Rusty knew that his wife murdered Carolyn the whole time. If he did not believe so, then why would he not want her to testify? If she did tell the jury about Rusty and Carolyn’s affair, then that would only be throwing her own husband under the bus. She loves him too much to do that to him. He also loves Barbara too much for her life to be ruined. He knew that if she testified, then she would admit to the murder of Carolyn. The final scene is great because it is the moment when the circle of guilt is completed, and all loose ends are tied up for what me know is the time being.