"The Adventure Of The Engineer's Thumb" and "The Destructors" are both crime stories - I am going to discuss the authors' contrasting approaches to story telling and to the subject of crime.

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English Coursework – Compare 2 stories

“The Adventure Of The Engineer’s Thumb” and “The Destructors” are both crime stories. I am going to discuss the authors’ contrasting approaches to story telling and to the subject of crime.

“The Adventure Of The Engineers Thumb” has a first person narrator: Dr Watson. This is a good choice of narrator because the reader is given the impression that as Watson is a doctor he can be trusted, this amplifies mystery and suspense; being Sherlock Holmes’ assistant and dear friend, Watson is the stand in character for the reader.

In the first paragraph of the story, Dr Watson explains that he will tell the story in such a way that “the facts slowly evolve before your own eyes and the mystery clears gradually away as each new discovery furnishes a step which leads on to the complete truth.” He tells the story as an account of what happened, and not from his own point of view. This keeps the reader in suspense, right up until the mystery is solved at the end of the story.

 However, “The Destructors” has a third person narrator. This is a good choice of narrator for this story because there are always a lot of things going on. For example, when they are tearing down the house from the inside, each person is doing a separate job, and by having a third person narrator, you get to see what everyone is doing; the main characters of the story are kids, and if a kid was to tell this story from a first person perspective, It would not sound as believable. Even though the story has a third person narrator, the story is told from the criminals’ point of view.

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During “The Adventure Of The Engineer’s Thumb” when Mr Victor Hatherley describes the mystery, no details are left out. All the horrific details are included, which creates vivid images and makes the story seem more believable. Nothing is left to the imagination.

Hatherley tells his story rationally which again makes it seem more believable, and the conversation throughout his story is short, sharp, and factual.

Suspense is caused by detailed descriptions, dramatic pauses and the actual length of his statement.

“The Destructors” lacks this attention to detail, and relies upon the readers’ imagination to provide details, and images of ...

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