The camera can capture hope. All the front pages carried the same picture, of a pretty, charming, clever-looking girl, with every appearance of being happy in her own skin and with a brave new world in front of her. The camera can also capture tragedy. Elianne Andam dominated the news because she had been murdered.
What words could express the grief of those who loved her? What comfort could heal their traumas? At the end of Macbeth, after young Siward had become the tyrant’s final victim, Ross tries to reach out to the youth’s father: “Your cause of sorrow must not be measured by his worth, for then it hath no end.” Old Siward fell back on stoicism, which is unlikely to console those closest to Miss Andam. One suspects that several of them will indeed be afflicted by measureless sorrow and life-long pain.
