With rightmost-first composition, a permutation cycle satisfies
Tracing each verifies the equality, and every other letter is fixed. Thus every cycle is a product of transpositions; decomposing a permutation into disjoint permutation cycles proves that every element of is such a product. The identity is the empty product.
To establish that parity is well defined, use the permutation matrix defined by . Its determinant is , and . A transposition swaps two columns of the identity matrix and has determinant . Therefore if is expressed as a product of transpositions,
The left side depends only on , so any two decompositions have the same parity. Define
Multiplicativity of the determinant makes this the sign homomorphism. Its kernel of a group homomorphism is the alternating group
It is a normal subgroup consisting of the even permutations. For the sign map is surjective because a transposition has sign , so . For both groups are trivial.
A three-cycle is an even permutation, as is a product of two disjoint three-cycles. Thus every element counted in part (c) lies in , and every order-three element of was already counted there. The answer remains .