Plagiarism In The Movie 'The Words'

Years of dedication and hardwork, stolen and claimed as someone else’s work. In the movie, The Words, the story revolves around the main character, Rory Jansen, a writer struggling to become successful. Him and his wife, Dora, goes on a honeymoon in Paris, this is where the story begins. Dora purchases an old briefcase containing a manuscript that no one knows about. Rory later on finds out about it, reads it, and learns that it is a magnificent piece of literature. Here he begins to plagiarise it, basically a copy and paste of the manuscript. Rory’s fame begins to take off and bolster his name as the next young writer. The original writer goes to find Rory to tell him the truth and that this is about his life. Rory, now faced with self guilt, is now in a battle with himself wh ether or not to admit his plagiarism. Rory finally confesses, consequently losing his wife and his title. Plagiarism is found everywhere in real life with new reports of it happening day by day. Plagiarism is an issue of integrity and honesty.

According to the Erik Wemple of The Washington Post, “CNN has fired a news editor in its London bureau for repeated plagiarism offenses…” (Wemple). Marie-Louise Gumuchian plagiarised 128 cases in 50 published stories; this lead to her losing her position at CNN. This example proves the consequential decisions of an individual who now has no job, and can no longer pursue writing because of plagiarism. Within the movie, The Words, the main character Rory Jansen suffered not only from self guilt, but his wife also left him. In the movie, the audience can begin to see that Rory is beginning to deteriorate through his actions, that ranged from paying the old man, pleading the publisher to take his name off the book, and asking his wife why she loves