Malcolm Gladwell’s Something Borrowed tells of Dorothy Lewis, a physchatrist who studied serial killers for over twenty-five years. When playwright Bryony Lavery’s play “Frozen” debuted on Broadway, Lewis received non stop calls from friends and acquaintances telling her that she “really ought to see it,” (Gladwell) because one of the main characters was also a psychiatrist who studied serial killers. Lewis was reluctant to see the play, having spent so much of her life studying serial killers, she
Admitted Theft: Malcom Gladwell and Plagiarism In something borrowed, Malcolm Gladwell presents a copyright infringement case that changed how he viewed plagiarism. A playwright, Bryony Lavery, used an article he wrote for a play of hers, “Frozen.” The article in question was about Dorothy Lewis, a psychiatrist who specialized in serial killers, and she was the one who was primarily upset. Gladwell too was upset initially, but the situation made him question the ideas we have about plagiarism. He
She wrote a memoir about her lives work, which was plagiarized by playwright Bryony Lavery and used in a Broadway show called “Frozen”. Gladwell’s work on Lewis was plagiarized as well. His initial reaction was to contact Lavery and let her know that he felt robbed by her, but he admits that he did not feel robbed but rather a little flattered. Gladwell realizes that he did not own the words he claimed
examples from many different pop-culture genres (music, theatre), Gladwell provides instances in which plagiarism is overlooked as mere coincidence, as well as instances in which plagiarism results in a destroyed reputation (British playwright Bryony Lavery, Frozen), or loss of employment (Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe) in order to provoke discussion about the severity of plagiarism, and illustrate how ideas become “...part of the archive of human knowledge...and, by the time ideas pass into