Deconstruction of Jigsaw's backstory:

Deconstruction of Jigsaw's back story from Saw:

John Kramer/Jigsaw (Saw) 

~ The Saw films, are all based around the story of John Kramer (also known as Jigsaw) who sets up traps for people which are difficult to escape from, rather than kill them directly and this makes him different from other serial killers. John Kramer was a devoted husband to Jill who unfortunately had a miscarriage, this made him become more detached and angry, which eventually caused the divorce between him and Jill. John was then told by a doctor that he had cancer, an inoperable brain tumor, he was dying and nothing could be done about it. 

~ Depressed at the futility of life, John attempted to commit suicide by driving his car over a cliff but he survived, discovering that when he knew he was about to die he only really began to value his life. John observed other people, going about their everyday life and noticed people who were wasting their life, undeserving and unappreciative of the life that was being denied to him. He began a mission to make people appreciate their lives and realise how precious life is, one by one.

~ John began to observe and plan how to kill his victims, (who he called "subjects"), creating devices to test their desire to live and whether they were worthy or not. He places his victims in the lethal traps with a chilling message, explaining what crime they had committed to land them in the trap and how they could escape. The traps often involved quick thinking, difficult decisions, self-mutilation or psychological trauma, that John would watch.

~ As the number of his victims increased, he was known as the "The Jigsaw Killer" or "Jigsaw", mainly because he would cut a piece of flesh from the corpse of each unsuccessful victim, meant to represent the one thing that the victims had been missing; the survival instinct. 

~ I like the idea of the main character having a back story as I think it's important there is a reason for them murdering people, even if it isn't that obvious to the audience. As we only have a short amount of time for our coursework, it would be extremely difficult to explain the motivation of our villain, but I think it might be good to include hints, for example a flashback, even if it's a few seconds long,  showing a major event from their past could give a hint as to why they are so murderous now.