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u/The_man_with_no_game

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Is this plagiarism?

Decades ago when I was a teenager in school, we were given a task to write a story similar to the play: Blood Brothers.

In the story, the protagonist stabs and kill a gang rival with a kitchen knife. He ran away from the crimes scene down to the river where he struggled to wash his hands. Later on on that night he quietly got home and put himself to bed, scared and full of remorse. He then noticed he still have blood on his hand due to difficulty of washing it off down by the river.

My English teacher asked me is it was meant to be literal blood on hands or metaphorical. I then said it was literal blood on his hand; however, you can interpret it as metaphorical if you wish, because the reader choose how they interpret as they want. She then crossed out that part of my story because it's too similar to Macbeth- the scene where Lady Macbeth washes her hands.

It has been decades now and this still plays in my mind. I don't think it was plagiarism but she and other teacher insisted it is.

What do you think?

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u/The_man_with_no_game — 9 days ago