Visitor and The Adventure of the Speckled Band as Short Stories :: sir Arthur Conan Doyle Roald Dahl Essays

Visitor and The Adventure of the Speckled Band as Short Stories The two texts ' Visitor ' and ' The adventure of the Speckled Band ' are typical of a short story genre because they both use ambiguous titles and short stories with very few characters and settings. The effect of this is an intense, exciting story which are unpredictable. The titls in both ' Visitor ' and ' The adventure of the Speckled Band ' are ambiguous and typical of a short story genre. Take ' Visitor ' by example, the word visitor could mean many different things such as friends, relatives, planned visit, unexpected visit or anything like that. So the reader is easily misled into thinking that the story is about those sort of things however we know that this is not the case with a short story genre. Again with ' The adventure of the Speckled Band ' the reader is again misled into thinking the title means something else. The word ' band ' could mean anything from a hair band, a group or a gang, musical to a ring. But as in ' Visitor ' the title is actually sending the reader way out with that title. So overall the titles are getting the audience asking questions about what is going to happen and creates an open mind to the reader. The openings are both typical to that of a short story genre as they lauch the reader straight into the story almost assuming that the reader already knows the characters and settings as though it were a soap opera. The opening to ' The adventure of the Speckled Band ' is descriptive with unanswered questions. " wide spread rumours ", this quotation gets the reader guessing as to what the rumours are. The openings are also sometimes very unsure. " Not again, not to soon!", this is very unsure and nervous start to the story. Both stories have an opening which is typical of a short story genre as they are both unsure and confusing. The characters in ' Visitor ' and ' The adventure of the Speckled Band ' are unsure with no real background information leaving the reader with little to go on. The author portrays the characters to be widely known and famous. This saves the author time aswell as making the story more intense. The author also has to consider working in his/hers limits and having the characters like this would save much time for them. With ' The adventure of the Speckled Band ' the reader is expected to know who some of the characters are.