“Orient Express is arguably her most enduring work as far as the average reader goes, due to the daring gimmick the author was able to pull off: they all did it ("Murder on the Orient" 155). This critical comment made by Greg Wilson gives an accurate depiction to the mystery that Agathe Christie builds up in her book. The Murder on the Orient Express has many aspects that played big roles in creating the novel. The way the author uses the aspects, such as plot, setting, the author 's style, and the characters are what made the book suspenseful and intriguing to the reader. There are many characters in the book, but main character in the book is Hercule Poirot. Hercule is a famous Belgian inspector known for his efficient, unorthodox methods …show more content…
The point of view in The Murder on the Orient Express is third-person omniscient, which is crucial to the book. The reader can see an example when Christie first introduces Mrs. Debenham. Christie tells all about Mrs. Debenham’s adventure up until that point and also gives a brief description of her thoughts and feelings about Hercule (Christie 6). Christie does not, however, reveal any of Mrs. Debenhams involvement in the murder. Knowing the thoughts of the characters is very important in keeping the reader interested and trying to figure out the murder without giving away. Critics supports this idea by saying, although the thoughts and feelings of all characters are given, the restricted information Christie leaves out, gives the readers a dramatic effect ("Murder on the Orient" 152). Christie’s style in The Murder on the Orient Express also included some stereotyping of individuals on the train. This stereotyping was shown when it was decided that the stab wounds seemed to be inflicted by a woman based on the lack of intensity (Christie 56). Another place stereotyping was concerned was when Antonio was suspected solely based on his Italian nationality (Christie 122). The stereotyping Christie includes in her book shows importance to the plot by distracting the readers from more valid evidence. This distraction is another tactic used to keep the reader intrigued in the story. Greg Wilson comments about Christie’s insensitive remarks and says she might use these shallow, stereotypical comments about the characters as a crucial part of the murder plot ("Murder on the Orient" 155). The author’s style draws the reader in by utilizing distracting elements to elude them from the
Another important character is King Leopold's, as Hochschild puts it, "Stagehand" Henry Morton Stanley. He was a surprisingly cruel person, killing many natives of the Congo in his sophomore voyage through the interior of Africa. The first was to find Livingston. Leopold used Stanley to discuss treaties with African leaders granting Leopold control over the Congo. Some of the natives he talked to weren't even in the position to sign the treaties, or they didn't know what they were signing.
There were really no very interesting characters in this book. I was never one to be interested in history. There were some interesting parts though, for instance, the chapter about the railroad man was pretty good, and it was kind of cool that he got promoted to vice-president of the railroad he work on within a year after he started the job. Some of the wars he was in were ok as well. It sometimes amazes me that there were so many unnamed heroes.
And last but not least is the villain in these movies. Most of the killers in these films are portrayed as mentally deranged and/or has some type of facial or bodily deformation and who have been traumatized at an early age. Even though these characters terrorized and murder people they have taken on the persona of anti-heroes in pop culture. Characters like Halloween’s Michael Myers, A Nightmare on Elm Street’s Freddy Krueger and Friday the 13th’s Jason Voorhees have become the reason to go see these movies. However, over time,”their familiarity and the audience’s ability to identify and sympathize with them over the protagonist made these villains less threatening (Slasher Film (5))”.
The entire story essentially centered on a man named Henry Spearman who is an economist professor at Harvard that decided to go on a vacation with his wife to get away from his work that he always seemed to be doing. The events that ensue on this island make the economist work more than he probably would have if he had not gone on this vacation to Cinnamon Bay. The entire book contains many characters, each of which has something to do with the two murders that happen on this island in their own way, and it is not until the end, that we find out the connections. Some of the characters include Matthew Dyke (who works at the same college as Henry) and his wife; General Decker (who is one of the men who is murdered in the book); Curtis Foote (the other man murdered in the book), Doug and Judy Clark (a couple that is vacationing on Cinnamon Bay who has just had their children picked up when Spearman met them, meaning they can now freely go to the clubs), Detective Vincent (the detective of the murders who hasn’t had a lot of experience investigating murders), along with many others.
The main character in the book was Thomas small; he is a young boy about 12 years old. He is shy and timid but is very mature for his age. He sees things for how they should be, and he often gives too much due to his kind-hearted nature. Thomas best friend is Pesty Darrow a girl his age who lives on the property that borders theirs. The Darrows are a feuding family and believe that there is gold buried on the Small’s land. They feel that it should belong to them and pull many risky stunts to try and find it. Mrs. Darrow is Pestys mother and the key to many secrets of the house and the tunnels that were once apart of the Underground Railroad. Due to her mental illness, she cannot speak and remember things clearly. Thomas’s father has known the location of the gold, and being the good man that he is, arranges for the Darrows to find it. He did this so they could live next to each other without feuding.
Through out time, women were not often seen as the hero, on numerous occasions they portray the damsel in distress, reason being, society believed they were not strong enough or even smart enough to be the one who saves the day. In Murder on the Orient Express and And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, women play a strong and fierce role as they help uncover the mystery that lies within the novel. Vera Claythorne of And Then There Were None and Mary Dembenham of Murder on the Orient Express, provide the narrative with clueful character analysis ', vital background information, and a deeper insight to the crime; therefore, enhancing and moving the story along, answering the question of who done it. The significance of each woman is evident,
¨When societies come under stress these kinds of things happen. People start looking around for essentially human sacrifices. They start looking around for somebody they can blame.” Margaret Atwood proposes this in an interview with Bill Moyers. The kinds of things she is speaking of is exactly what we observe in The Crucible by Arthur Miller which tells the story of the Salem witchcraft trials where many were punished and killed. In Arthur Miller’s ¨Why I Wrote The Crucible¨ we witness innocent people being blacklisted for conspiring with communists. All of these defend what Margaret Atwood declared in her interview. When a society comes under stress, we always find someone to blame.
In this book there were several characters, but only a few had significant roles. I
Having Christopher narrating the book in first person is important because it is easier for the reader to understand his written account of the murder of Mr. and Mrs. Sheers dog (Wellington); A step by step investigation is projected and shown to the reader when narrated in first person.
The plot is entertaining and suspenseful which allows it to hold up to the standards of the list. Foreshadowing maintains interest, and is a prominent part of the suspenseful nature of the plot. After the first murder of Mrs. Ascher, Hastings believed that the crime is a singular event, but Poirot stated, “This is only the beginning” (Christie 22). The author uses a delightful example of foreshadowing to hint to the later murders. This keeps the plot suspenseful which makes one want to continue reading. After discussing possible coincidences on the day of the murder with the victims’ friends and families, Poirot realized, “I tell you my friends, it cannot be a coincidence. Three crimes---and every time a man selling stockings and spying out the land” (Christie 211). The finding of clues allows the plot to continue, thus maintaining the reader’s interest and preventing the story from becoming too tedious to enjoy. While Monsieur Poirot finished pronouncing the name of the murderer, the narration stated, “Two detectives...
Now more than ever we live in a world of power struggles but in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Kesey brings the attention of this struggle to a more controversial setting. The book is placed in a mental institution called Combine. A key part to understanding Kesey’s message is understanding his history. He was a nurse in a mental institution which inspired this book because of his own personal observations and experiences. That means that his purpose is not just logical but very much comes from the heart. Another key part is the time period. During the early 1960s America was in the space race. There was a strong power struggle then as well between capitalism vs communism. They also were in a stage of reform in which the idea
Tom Sawyer- A misbehaving child who for most of the novel gets him and his friends either into trouble or occasionally out of trouble.
The movie A Beautiful Mind, directed by Ron Howard, tells the story of Nobel Prize winner, and mathematician, John Nash’s struggle with schizophrenia. The audience is taken through Nash’s life from the moment his hallucinations started to the moment they became out of control. He was forced to learn to live with his illness and learn to control it with the help of Alicia. Throughout the movie the audience learns Nash’s roommate Charles is just a hallucination, and then we learn that most of what the audience has seen from Nash’s perspective is just a hallucination. Nash had a way of working with numbers and he never let his disease get in the way of him doing math. Throughout the movie the audience is shown how impactful and inspirational John Nash was on many people even though he had a huge obstacle to overcome.
The novella Death in Venice by Thomas Mann describes the journey of an older German writer, Gustav Aschenbach, who comes to Venice on vacation and falls deliriously in love with a young boy. This love, and the obsession it culminates in lead to the demise of the writer. Mann’s story seems to be about an ill-fated love but in truth it tells a tale of a man who goes from total control of his life and his being to an irrational creature who is controlled by wild emotions that he will eventually succumb to. Such a story line perfectly illustrates the differences between the two Greek gods of art and how people can fall under the influence of each. Both Apollo and Dyonisis are gods of creativity and art in the Greek world yet they have such different
Alice in Wonderland belongs to the nonsense genre, and even if most of what happens to Alice is quite illogical, the main character is not. “The Alice books are, above all, about growing up” (Kincaid, page 93); indeed, Alice starts her journey as a scared little girl, however, at the end of what we discover to be just a dream, she has entered the adolescence phase with a new way to approach the mentally exhausting and queer Wonderland. It is important to consider the whole story when analyzing the growth of the character, because the meaning of an event or a sentence is more likely to mean what it truly looks like rather than an explanation regarding subconscious and Freudian interpretations. Morton states “that the books should possess any unity of purpose seems on the surface unlikely” (Morton, page 509), but it’s better to consider the disconnected narrative and the main character separately, since the girl doesn’t belong to Wonderland, which is, as Morton says, with no intrinsic unity. Whereas, there are a few key turning points where it is possible to see how Alice is changing, something that is visible throughout her journey. Carroll wants to tell the story of a girl who has to become braver in order to contend with challenges like the pool made by her own tears, or assertive characters, like the Queen.