1. Introduction “Miss Marple was born at the age of sixty-five to seventy–which as with Poirot, proved unfortunate, because she was going to have to last a long time in my life. If I had had any second sight I would have provided myself with a precocious schoolboy as my first detective; then he could have grown old with me” (Agatha Christie 2011, 436) This is what Agatha Christie, the queen of crime fiction, stated in her autobiography about one of her most famous characters, the elderly female
Mrs. Bantry asks her friend “amateur detective” Miss Marple to join the investigation. Josie Turner, the victim’s cousin, identifies the body as ruby Keene, a professional dancer at the Majestic a nearby hotel in Danemouth. The Glenshire and Radforshire police cooperate to solve the crime, only discovering another murdered girl’s guide body, totally burnt out in a car that was set on fire. Despite the two crimes seem unrelated to the police Miss Marple finds the connection cl... ... middle of paper
Agatha Christie is one of the most popular female writers of all time. She has written over ninety-six novels. She has written several plays, and seventeen of her novels have been made into major theatre productions; and even following the theatre productions they were then made into motion pictures. Christie is known widely as the “Queen of Crime”. Her work is very familiar to most literary scholars due to their complexity and the mystery of the book; it keeps you guessing the entire book up until
Red Herrings in the novel The Body in the Library Agatha Christie wrote her third Miss Marple book in 1942 by the name The Body in the Library. Christie enjoyed to write her detective books using red herrings. But what is a red herring, and how did she use them in literature? The novel The Body in the Library is a detective story written in 1942. This story includes two murders, several red herrings, and multiple alibis. The novel is about a body that is found in a library of Mr. and Mrs. Bantry
Agatha Christie wrote most of her books with the same recurring themes. One of the themes that Christie has in her books is feminism. The definition of feminism is the belief in the need to protect rights, and opportunities for women to be equal to those of men. It is also saying they can go through life without having a man in their lives and living as independent women. Anti-feminism is the opposite of feminism and says women are all the same and do need a man in their life. Christie uses
Use of Metaphor in The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler wrote The Big Sleep as a piece of hard boiled detective fiction. This style was a reaction to the high style of detective stories such as those involving Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple. Writers often set hard boiled detective novels in a gritty world where everyone has a past. In The Big Sleep, Chandler keeps this edgy, lower class tone right down to the objects he utilizes for comparisons in his metaphors. Chandler is highly precise in
Genres are far from being nominological and typological in function , but rather requires constant modification and sometimes even subversion so as to reflect certain values and ideological concerns significant in the composers context. Based on the psycholinguistic concept of prototypicality , genres can be seen as ‘fuzzy’ categories embodying formulaic conventions readily identified by audiences. However, these categories are never static. In concurring with theorist Daniel Chandler, genres holistically
“Mystery fiction is a game with rules, an intellectual competition between writer and reader. To keep the game honest, both writer and reader must be playing by the same rules” (Miller). Some of the conventional rules of detective fiction are listed in S. S. Van Dine’s “Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories” and Ronald Knox’s “10 Commandments of Detective Fiction.” However, some of the ‘rules’ Knox and Van Dine list do not extend to Ruth Rendell’s A Judgement in Stone and Agatha Christie’s The
Tour of San Antonio The Missions of Texas While in San Antonio there are five missions you, as a tourist, need to see. These missions are the mission of Nuestra Senora de la Purissima Concepcion, the San Jose y San Miguel de Aguayo, the Mission San Juan Capistrano, San Franciscode la Espada, and Mission San Antonio de Valero, The Alamo. They are all a great part of the state of Texas. The Mission Concepcion was first built in East Texas in 1716, but they only stayed there for fifteen years do to
Narration in The Turn of the Screw Henry James makes the governess the narrator because she keeps the readers’ interest by also being involved in the story as a main character. However, being involved on this personal level, it can make the governess exaggerate at times and be over-emotional. Her determined and curious nature makes her an ideal candidate to explore the mysterious happenings, however her imagination keeps the reader in suspense, as we are never sure how much she has exaggerated
Miss Caroline’s First Day It was the first day of school for many in Maycomb, including myself. I had just moved from a college in Winston Country. Almost 30 years have past since that day in Maycomb when I first saw the school I was to be teaching at. The classroom smelt stale after being closed up for the whole summer, as I met my students who I would teach for the next year. The one child I remember most had a trail of dirty footprints leading to his desk. The little horror looked like he was
Time is one of the most pervasive themes in The Great Gatsby, weaving between characters and situations, slowing and speeding the action until the entire novel seems almost dreamlike. Fitzgerald not only manipulates time in the novel, he refers to time repeatedly to reinforce the idea that time is a driving force not only for the 1920s, a period of great change, but for America itself. We will see Fitzgerald also turns a critical eye to the American concept of time, in effect warning us all to avoid
A Closer Look at “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” The poem “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” by Adrienne Rich was written in 1950. At first glance, it appears to be a feminist piece whose sole purpose is to point out the ways in which a particular woman (Aunt Jennifer) is oppressed. However when a closer look is given, there is much more to this piece. When the poem is read line by line, much more meaning can be gleaned from it. “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers prance across a screen,” the screen would seem to be a tapestry
Machineries are used in everyday life and had benefited us in many ways. The invention of machines started to quicken in the last hundred years but it is the industrial revolution which brought about a change in many industries by introducing the use of machines so that goods could produced at a much faster and cheaper rate. Starting in the early 19th Century the United States underwent the industrial revolution. The work that many people did changed as they moved from farms and small workshops into
Miss Maudie & Aunt Alex The Maycomb ladies provide an excellent example of racial prejudice, and a failure to see what it is like in someone else’s skin. They believe they are doing well by making money for missions, failing to see the hardship on their own doorsteps. Aunt Alexandra is very important to the novel, ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ as she is a representative of these viewpoints, disapproving of Calpurnia and disassociating herself from the black community entirely. Miss Maudie however is
My dad won't sit on the riverbank anymore. He won't tell any more fishermen's tales. He won't cast his fly again and though his creel may be empty my eyes are filled with tears. My dad was a quiet man. He liked the solitude of fishing. He liked to be one with nature. It wouldn't occur to him that he was so popular, that he will be missed so much. Yet the very fact that so many mourn his passing says much more about him, and his kindness, than mere words. My dad, you see, did his good deeds
The governess in the novella The Turn of the Screw by Henry James has a questionable character. She explicitly states that she sees apparitions of past Bly residents, making her an honest narrator; however, there are times when her rationality is uncertain. The governess is insane because the ghosts she sees stem from her hallucinations, her excessive anxiety drives her to madness, and the other residents cannot see the ghosts. The governess is insane because the apparitions are just figments
Prime of Miss Jean Broadie To be in Miss Broadie’s set was to be set apart from the rest of the school. They were outwardly looked upon with disdain. Inwardly, however, others were jealous of them for the distinction they received. Each girl in the Broadie set was held on a pedestal. Each had something special about them, reasons why they were chosen by Miss Broadie, and that puts them at higher regard. Each girl was famous in school for something. They really have very little in common
I miss you Grandpa I remember spending summers in Kansas with Grandpa. I grew up in the suburbs - spending summers in Kansas was a bit of culture shock. I remember waking up early and sitting around the kitchen table and listening while Grandpa and my mom sipped coffee and talked. The Hutch paper was always spread across the table, and inevitably, the conversation would turn to me. "He probably fails all his classes, don't he?" Grandpa would ask. A slow smile would
Action, Props, Costumes, and Visual Elements in Trifles Susan Glaspell’s play, Trifles, shows the importance of staging, gestures, and props to create the proper atmosphere of a play. Without the development of the proper atmosphere through directions from the author, the whole point of the play may be missed. Words definitely do not tell the whole story in Trifles - the dialog only complements the unspoken. Susan Glaspell tells us her vision of the Wright's kitchen, where the action of her