It is said that Good writers are those who are able to make the readers feel as if they were living the story on their own, they can feel part of it, and they are even able to predict the events. A piece text well written and with a high quality does not allow the reader stop reading. Thinking about Agatha Christy’s story, The Million Dollar Bond Robbery, and Edgar Alan Poe’s, The Gold Bug, I dare say that the way they write can do this.
In The Million Dollar Bond Robbery story we are told about a robbery that took place in a ship, the Olympia. Unfortunately, what was stolen was not a common thing, but a million dollars worth of Liberty Bonds which the London and Scottish Bank were sending to New York. Mr. Poirot, a kind of detective and Captain Hastings, his partner, are asked to solve the case by a lady called Esmeé Farquhar who was engaged to Philip Ridgeway (the man that was in charge of carrying the bonds to New York). After making some inquiries and interrogating many people, the great Mister Poirot was able to find out the robber, who was one of the most unexpected people, Mister Shaw, one of the two join general managers of the bank.
The Gold Bug basically tells the story of a man called Legrand who found a golden bug which, together with a parchment, let him discover the instructions to find a millionaire treasure that had been hidden by a not very known pirate, Captain Kidd. He was able to find it out thanks to a draft of the gold bug that he had made for a friend of him on a piece of parchment. The heat of the fire that was near them made a secret message appears on the piece of paper. After decoding the message, which had been written with special ink and was visible just when it was heat, Legrand, his old African servant Jupiter, and his friend, who was the narrator of the story, went for the treasure, following word by word the instructions of the found parchment. More than one hundred diamonds, pearls, stones and jewels were inside of he chest they found, which become them all very rich.
Thinking about the similarities, it can be said that they had the same main topic. It was money. In Agatha Christie’s story, The million dollar bond robbery, we are able to see the mister Shaw’s shrewd, the robber, to make everybody think that the bonds had been stolen by any other person but not him. In Agatha Christi’s, The Gold Bug, we were told about the finding of a golden insect which was the key to find a valuable hidden treasure. But there is one difference to take into account: in the first story, Mister Shaw tried to steal the money. On the other hand, in “The gold Bug”, Legrand found, unintentionally, the instructions to find the treasure.
Another similarity is that either of the two ending of the stories is solved just by the end. Poe’s piece of text is a detective one, which does not let us find the robber out till the complete story is read. Likewise, Agatha Christy’s acts in that way too because the readers are expectant all the time, waiting to discover if the secret hidden treasure is real or not. Such writing style gives us the nod to think of our own hypotheses and makes the stories more interesting to read.
Alike extension is another likeness that both pieces of text have. They are not so long, so it makes them advisable for those who do not like reading long stories. The structure and the way by which the stories are narrated are also similar. Both start with a matter that needs to be solved, both of them are looking for something. In Poe’s what needs to be found is the robber and the Liberty Bonds, and in Christy’s, the incognita of the secret message is what requires solution.
Even though both pieces of text have some relevant similarities, they have some specifics characteristics which make them differ from each other. Semantically talking, The million dollar bond Robbery can be more difficult to understand because of the many words whose meaning the readers may not know. So it might need to be read more than once whereas The gold Bug can be considered easier to grasp since the vocabulary used by the author is more simple.
Context is another important difference to consider. Talking about the place where both stories are happened, we are able to realize that The Million Dollar Bond Robbery takes place in The UK, being the story a serious business matter while The gold bug’s facts are happened on a small island fourteen kilometers from Charleston in America, and, in such way, it is not so serious as the Million dollar Bond Robbery is.
The characters are also different in each story. Poe’s story main characters are business people and, in certain way, they belong to an upper social class while in Christy’s the characters do not have such high social level, minding that Legrand was even very poor when he found the gold bug.
There is another difference related to the quantity of characters in each story. There are more people in The Million Dollar Bond Robbery. For example, we can mention Mister Vavasour and Mister Shaw, who were the two joint general managers of the bank, Philip Ridgeway, the person in charge of carrying the bonds to New York, Miss Fhaquar who was Mister Ridgeway’s fiancé, Mister Poirot, the detective in charge of the case and his inseparable partner Captain Hastings, inspector McNeil, the other detective in charge of the case, to mention just some of them. In contrast, there are just three important characters in The gold bug story. They are Legrand, who found the bug, his old African servant, Jupiter, and Legrand’s friend, the narrator, whose name is never mentioned. The relationship between them is also closer as they were friends. On the other hand, in Poe’s story, the relationship between the characters is mainly the relation of people who work for the same company, in this case, the London and Scottish bank.
Looking for the differences yet, we can realize that in both stories, the characters are looking for something. But the difference is that what they look for is completely different in each story. One looks for the robber, and the other looks for a millionaire treasure. To make it more understandable, it can be said that in one story, the money has been stolen, involving bad values like dishonesty, wickedness and betrayal, that is why the robber is wanted. In the other one, the money has been hidden by a seaman, and it was more like a lucky strike and does not involve the bad values mentioned in Poe’s piece od text.
Now, personally talking about the two stories, I consider both of them interesting enough. Either The Million Dollar Bond Robbery or the Gold Bug casts the doubt on the ending of the story . They make the reader create their own hypotheses about the final events. That makes them more interesting to be read and special for those who enjoy reading stories with an exciting ending.
Referring to the writing style of both authors I can say that it is similar in certain way. Both are able to catch the reader’s attention and use an interesting topic. Although the topic used in both stories is different mainly because of the context, they both can be considered as excellent pieces of text.
The kind of narrator in The Gold Bug can be defined as omniscient narrator because who tells the story is, at the same time, part of it and it is narrated is narrated in third person. We are never told about the identity of the narrator. He just participates and tells the events as they happen. In comparison, in The Million Dollar Bond Robbery, the events are told by a witness narrator from his point of view.
The Gold Bug is aimed at every kind of readers, including children because it easy to understand and read, and the vocabulary used is basic. On the other hand, the Million Dollar Bond Robbery is more recommended for adult people because the topic used is related to business, so it can result a little boring to read. But as it was said at the beginning, it is a detective story, and that can become it more attractive.
In conclusion, either The Million Dollar Bond Robbery or The Gold Bug is a recommendable piece of text. They are all short, understandable and interesting. It is obvious the excellent writing style that Agatha Christy and Edgar Alan Poe have to write such high pieces of text. It is known that both of them have a great passion for literature, dedicating very much time of his lives, in which such great skill is reflected. I am pretty sure that they can be an example to become a good writer.
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