49 pages • 1 hour read
Graeme Macrae BurnetHis Bloody Project: A Historical Thriller
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Preface-Statements
The Account of Roderick Macrae, Pages 15-37
The Account of Roderick Macrae, Pages 37-59
The Account of Roderick Macrae, Pages 59-83
The Account of Roderick Macrae, Pages 83-96
The Account of Roderick Macrae, Pages 96-112
The Account of Roderick Macrae, Pages 112-126
The Account of Roderick Macrae, Pages 126-133 and Medical Reports
Extract from Travels in the Border-Lands of Lunacy by J. Bruce Thomson
The Trial, First and Second Day
The Trial, Third Day-Epilogue
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
BetaThe Account of Roderick Macrae, Pages 59-83Chapter Summaries & Analyses
The Account of Roderick Macrae, Pages 59-83 Summary
Roderick strikes up a friendship with Flora, Lachlan Mackenzie’s daughter, after she approaches him with a cup of milk during his work. Despite the bad blood between their families, the two meet again later that evening, and Roderick shows her a lost baby bird he has been nursing to health. Jetta warns Roderick that nothing good will come from befriending Flora.
Later, Roderick and John are at work gathering waste from the sea to fertilize their croft. Mackenzie interrupts them to inform them that, as the waste belongs to Lord Middleton, they must seek his permission if they wish to collect it. He makes them return the waste to the sea and later pays a visit to their home, where he informs John Macrae that, as Middleton’s representative, he will be willing to grant permission if John asks him. John refuses to be humiliated and Mackenzie leaves, stopping at every house in Culduie to grant the other villagers permission to harvest fertilizer from the sea.
Roderick then describes his frequent visits from Andrew Sinclair, which he admits he has grown to enjoy. He explains that Sinclair has recently suggested that Roderick consider entering a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, which Roderick initially rejects. Despite Roderick’s assurances that he is of sound mind, Sinclair argues that Roderick would have no way of knowing if he wasn’t.
Returning to the narrative, Roderick describes his second meeting with Flora, who approaches him while he is teasing some crows. He accepts her invitation to accompany her on an errand to the neighboring town, Aird-Dubh, to deliver eggs. They talk about God and morality, as well as the feud between their families, along the way. Upon returning home, John warns Roderick not to associate with Flora—an order Roderick has no intention of following.
After not seeing Flora for a number of days, he walks to her house in the middle of the night to discover whether she is away from home, working as a servant at Lord Middleton’s estate. Peering through the window, he finds Flora missing. He runs away when her senile grandmother appears to notice his presence.
The Account of Roderick Macrae, Pages 59-83 Analysis
Roderick’s description of nursing birds back to health represents another important instance of avian imagery. Firstly, the revelation that Roderick makes a habit of nursing birds back to health further indicates his identification with birds and other animals. His story of nursing a fledging crow nicknamed Blackie—a diminutive of the Macrae family nickname of Black—who he later imagines to see around town further proves this connection. By imagining that any of the numerous crows he sees around town could be the one he successfully rescued, Roderick can see himself reflected in nature.
This memory dovetails into a recounting of a local superstition, in which crows “are thought to be an augury of ill fortune” (61). Roderick notes that he has “witnessed fishermen hurling sizeable rocks at an offending bird with no regard to the damage they might cause the boat, as if in repelling the offending symbol they will avert the misfortune it portends” (61).
Nevertheless, he has never known anyone to alter their course of action because of a crow’s presence. This illustrates Roderick’s distaste for superstition and other forms of belief, and demonstrates how people find ways to reinforce their preconceived expectations. The novel presents several such systems of belief, and Roderick’s description of this particular superstition exemplifies his overarching opposition to this kind of thought. As he notes, “It seems to me that if a person is struck by misfortune, it is quite probable that he will be able to think back and remember that a crow was perched that morning on his gable” (62).
Later, Roderick’s nighttime visit to the Mackenzie house and his encounter with Flora’s grandmother, who appears to be in an advanced state of dementia, prefigures his later journey to the house on the day of his murders. His planned defense in case he’s spotted—that he will pretend to suffer from sleepwalking—shows his willingness to lie and dissemble to hide when he’s doing something he knows could get him into trouble. Furthermore, gazing through Flora’s window in this instance echoes when he witnessed Lachlan raping Jetta, which he also saw through a window. This establishes a pattern wherein windows frame moments of illicit sexual or romantic desire. In this case, Roderick’s gaze is thwarted by Flora’s grandmother, who he worries will raise the alarm despite her dementia.
