Detective story discussion The Gatewood Caper by Dashiell Hammett.
" The Gatewood Caper"
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" The Gatewood Caper" by Dashiell Hammett is not just an exciting
detective story; its characters are real and fascinating people who
are just as believable now as when they were first created.
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" The Gatewood Caper" is a detective story written by the writer
Dashiell Hammett. It was written and set during the 1920s in San
Francisco, Los Angeles, in an aristocratic setting. Harvey Gatewood is
a rich businessman who finds out, his daughter Audrey has been
kidnapped. He calls and hires a detective, the detective tells Mr
Gatewood to pay the ransom. However Audrey doesn't return after the
money has been paid and the detective grows suspicious that something
is not quite right. He then goes in search of Audrey and finds her in
an apartment with a man. Audrey begins to shoot at the detective
through the door, but in the end both her and the man give up.
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" The Gatewood Caper" certainly is an exciting detective story. The
writer has us guessing all through the story about who has kidnapped
Audrey and wondering whom the villain could be. The detective in this
story was only in the detective business for the money but he still
used his observations and cunning to track Audrey down.
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Good and evil were not easy to spot in this story as the theme was not
as expected, the writer kept you guessing from beginning to end, not a
typical detective story. I found that the story moved very fast and
got to the point quicker than most, which held my interest as I knew
it wouldn't be long till the conclusion.
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Some parts of the story were unconvincing. I would have expected a
villain, a heroine, and someone to get their just desserts in any
other detective story but I found the ending a bit of a let down when
I found out Audrey had kidnapped herself to punish her father.
Although I did feel sorry for Audrey as her father was a bully as
Hammett writes " He was a big bruiser of a man, something over 200
pounds of hard red flesh and a czar from the top of his bullet to the
toes of his shoes." From this description we can understand why Audrey
has a problem with her father, especially when he lost his temper what
could she do with a man with that physique. Audrey was both victim and
villain in this story, which was unexpected.
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However, Hammett puts as much skill into characterisation as he does
into plot and suspense.
The idea that man's relationship with good and evil is not predestined is a central idea in this novel. The conflict between good and evil is a universal battle. Many characters in the novel, East of Eden, struggle both internally and externally with Good versus evil.
Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, is tale about a grandmother who unknowingly steers her family to a fatal meeting with a fugitive. The chance encounter with the murderous fugitive ultimately costs the grandmother and her family their lives. Sticking with the Southern Gothic genre, O’Connor takes odd characters and mixes in dark encounters to produce a story packed full of hidden meanings and foreshadowing (Language and Literature, 2). At first glance, it seems easy to identify the character that represents evil in the story, the murderous outlaw. However, things are not always, what they seem; a closer look will reveal that the murder might not be the evilest character in the story.
Everyone remembers the nasty villains that terrorize the happy people in fairy tales. Indeed, many of these fairy tales are defined by their clearly defined good and bad archetypes, using clichéd physical stereotypes. What is noteworthy is that these fairy tales are predominately either old themselves or based on stories of antiquity. Modern stories and epics do not offer these clear definitions; they force the reader to continually redefine the definitions of morality to the hero that is not fully good and the villain that is not so despicable. From Dante’s Inferno, through the winding mental visions in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, spiraling through the labyrinth in Kafka’s The Trial, and culminating in Joyce’s abstract realization of morality in “The Dead,” authors grapple with this development. In the literary progression to the modern world, the increasing abstraction of evil from its classic archetype to a foreign, supernatural entity without bounds or cure is strongly suggestive of the pugnacious assault on individualism in the face of literature’s dualistic, thematically oligopolistic heritage.
Good, is portrayed by God, and evil seems to be what fate has in store for the
In the Lion the Witch and Wardrobe, good vs. evil is teaching children the right from wrong in this book. Lewis uses the archetypes hero and villain very good throughout his novel to also portray right from wrong. His use of archetype the hero reminds readers that Aslan is the hero in his novel. He shows this by the many ways Aslan rescues and saves his people all throughout the novel. His use of archetype villain shows the readers that the White Witch is the villain in his
How are the themes of good and evil explored in Chapters 16 and 17 of
At first it is seen as a story about man and the evils he can do, yet
The idea of a detective catching an elusive convict or solving an improbable crime has been prevalent in all corners of the world, spread throughout many cultures and societies. The detective genre is held as the idea that an individual has to solve a crime. This detective usually has nothing to gain from solving the crime, but they see it more as an obstacle. The detective doesn’t always take every case, as human beings, we are too often curious of the impossible; our natural instinct is to question why and how things work in this world. People crave mystery, to taste a bit of improbable, to see what the detectives see, to see what is overlooked by many. The idea of an intelligent witty, sharp “sleuth” with an obedient sidekick has been prevalent
I gave this story 2 out of 10.As it make my heart apart after reading the story, when a women is hit by another human beings, the worst part was even by kids. There was no rule set to stop killing or banned this game. Where every year any body like “Tessie” (a victim,protagonist) has to sacrifice her life by her own village people above all ,with her own family. The 2 numbers were just for the first opening paragraph where every thing seems normal with the start of the beautiful day of the the June morning.
Detective fiction always ends with a successful resolution because law and order is restored. Once moral and social order is restored this impacts the reader as they are still trying to figure out how it happened and how did Holmes solve the crime. The reader also feels relieved when a crime is solved especially if it was Victorian readers.
Through the analysis of characters and their actions, the novel Grendel suggests society has adopted good and evil’s unequal relationship for meaningfulness in life. The modern society is built on the opposite forces of nature and that evil must be challenged although good prevails it. However, evil and good is subjective which makes the true struggle between good and evil. Moreover, our every day actions are differentiated between good and evil acts. Unfortunately, while this occurs, good and evil will never be a black and white concept.
The lines that define good and evil are not written in black and white but tend to
in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" Flannery O' Connor uses symbolism to give more meaning to her short story. O'Connor writes a story of a Grandmother versus a Misfit, or good versus evil. This short story is about a family going to Florida, who takes a turn down a dirt road, which only causes them to get in an accident, and be found by the Misfit. This encounter prevented them from ever arriving Florida, because the Misfit ends their lives. Using symbolism, O'Connor creates a story with much meaning to the Grandmother, nature, sky, woods, their surroundings, roads, and cars to portray the constant battle between good and evil.
In Flannery O 'Connor 's short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, the theme of good vs. evil unravels throughout the series of tragic events. The Grandmother’s epiphany introduces the idea of morality and the validity is left to the interpretation of the reader. By questioning the characteristics of right and wrong, morality and religion become subjective to personal reality and the idea of what makes individuals character good or bad becomes less defined.
Good and evil are central themes in Paradise Lost. Classic symbols of both extremes are in the book: God and Satan, good and evil personified, respectively. In spite of the seeming dichotomy of either pure evil or total goodness, for much of Paradise Lost the distinction between good and evil is not very clear. The goodness of Man overcome by sin and the fall of God’s holy angels to hell are examples of the overlap of both good and evil within characters. This inherent potential for evil in Adam, Eve and Lucifer ****. Further, the relationship between good and evil and their relative dependence on each other is brought into question by the roles they play in Paradise Lost.