The similarities between the two beginnings are that they both start off in quite a normal way. This is seen in the way the Vicars wife is doing the ordinary thing of flower arranging ‘arranged the blooms in their holders’. Another way in which they are similar is that each of the extracts gives small hints of things like death fear and darkness. For example in the Adventures of the Speckled Band the woman says, ‘it is fear, Mr Holmes, it is terror’ and in Miss Marple’s Final Cases Bunch says to herself, ‘I don’t want to die of cold’.
The differences between these two stories are that the Adventures of the Speckled Band is set in Victorian times whereas the other story is set more in the 1930’s. You can tell this by the words used. For instanced in the Adventures of the Speckled Band it says ‘Knocked up’ instead of woken up. Another difference between the stories is that the Agatha Christie novel is set in the countryside whereas the Arthur Conan Doyle novel is set closer to a city or town.
In the Adventures of the Speckled Band the story is told through the eyes of Dr Watson who is Sherlock Holmes’ best friend. All of the events are also seen through the eyes of Dr Watson. In Miss Marple’s Final Cases the author tells the story. Again the author sees all of the events.
In the first extract there are only three characters Dr Watson, Sherlock Holmes and a woman. Two people are mentioned but do not appear. Dr Roylott ‘the death of Dr Grimesby Roylott’ and Mrs Hudson ‘Mrs Hudson has had the good sense to light the fire’. In the second extract there is the first character, which is the Vicars wife. Then there is the man on the chancel.
What we realise about the characters is that Holmes believes in logic and is very observant ‘for I observe you are shivering’. I think that Dr Watson thinks that Holmes is very clever and shows a bit of jealousy because of it ‘perhaps just a little resentment’. The woman seems to be very agitated and afraid of something because of the way she shivers.
In the second extract the Vicars wife seems to be quite a pleasant woman. She also seems to be slightly untidy because of the way she wears her hat ‘more rakishly than it had done before’.
I think the Adventures of the Speckled Band is made interesting by the way you know that the woman is worried about something but you don’t know what until you read on. I also think it is made interesting by the way Dr Watson says that all of Sherlock Holmes’ cases are unusual ‘but none commonplace’. So this tells you that this one is going to be just as unusual.
I think that Miss Marple’s Final Cases is made interesting by the way it is just an ordinary day until one small thing happens. Also because of this one thing you want to find out what is going on and why it has happened.
I noticed that there is a difference between the language used in each of these extracts. You can tell that the Adventures of the Speckled Band was written earlier because of the words and phrases used like ‘a young lady has arrived in a considerable state of excitement’. With quotes like this it makes it more difficult to understand. Whereas the Agatha Christie novel is a lot easier to understand because the words used are a lot more similar to the ones that we use today.
I would have to say that I prefer the Miss Marple’s Final Cases. This is because I think that the way the story starts is very good for drawing you into the story. By having something out of the ordinary happen in an ordinary situation.
