Between Christie and Poe

When we talk about books, we can say that there are a huge variety of them. We can find about every topic in the world, kitchen, science, children’s, cars, fairy tales, etc. Each of them is written with an intention for the reader and beginning this, each author decides how to form its production with images, acknowledges, the body of the main story or topic, etc. That is the way these two famous authors worked their entire lives: Agatha Christie and Edgar Allan Poe. These two authors, known because of many productions that made them famous a parted from each other, made their careers based in fictitious stories that liked readers from every age around the world.

On one hand Agatha Christie, an English writer wrote around 79 novels and hundreds of short stories transformed into movies and plays on theatres. She wrote books like “Black Coffee”, “Love from a stranger”, “Cards on the table”, etc. On the other hand Edgar Allan Poe, an American writer, poet and romantic journalist, was known because of his short stories and his horror tales. He wrote stories like “The oval portrait”, “A dream within a dream”, “The masque of the red death”, etc. In all these productions we can see the differences between these two ways of writing that they have.

Let’s analyze two of the most famous books to compare how they usually describe and tell their stories. Firstly we will take “The million dollars bonds robbery” by Agatha Christie, which tells a short story about a theft of money that belongs to “The London and Scottish bank”. Secondly, we will choose “The gold bug” written by Edgar Allan Poe that tells another short story about a man who find a strange kind of insect on the shore which it will take him to a tremendous treasure. From the first time we listen the titles of each story, we can imagine that the topic of each story are very different between them. We can infer that they are destined to different people according to the age, and this first sight it’s not so far from the general vision.

The story written by Agatha Christie is about relations among people, but not any people, people from a bank so that relations are full of speech, treatments, lies, treachery, etc. while Poe’s story is about adventures, creatures, magic, etc., something more interesting for children. Besides, in the first one, the author is very descriptive. Christie gives the whole description with little details to make the reader imagine her same vision; meanwhile the second one gives the chance to imagine in any other way. Why this happens? Her intention giving the details is because the mystery plays with these details, focused in the environment because of its importance for the development of the story, unlike “the gold bug” in which Poe focus his writings in the facts of the story, the situation is the important thing no matter the details.

The vocabulary that Agatha uses in her book, is more complex than Allan’s one. She includes words in French and concepts like “Mal de mer” that the meaning requires some knowledge of culture to understand it well, otherwise you can’t it’s difficult to understand because it’s not possible to look for that in dictionaries. With these features, we can infer that these books haven’t been posted to the same rank of age as I said before. That’s something that we can check with the fact that the author of one of these books, of the gold bug to be more specific, uses pictures with the texts. That is a characteristic way to create books for children. Hence with all of these, we can see Christie wrote her book for people older than the readers of Poe’s one.

Therefore, with all of this stuff, we can see how authors of books choose different ways to form their books depending of the rank of age. You can’t create a book for children with no pictures, because pictures are what they see at first! They love draws and it is a way to help them, imagine the monsters and heroes whose the writer, is talking about. Even there are some little kids that when they are starting with readings, they only look the draws understanding the main fact of the story or unless the characters in some situations. Nevertheless, there are books to adults that have small lyrics in each paper, with the intention to have more information compressed to make the reader a fast reading.

Hence we can see that each author catches the attention of the public in many ways. With or without images or the weight of books, the important thing is the content, and that’s what people love, getting involved with the characters and the world the author presents us.

In my opinion, I think these two kinds of books are good options for entertainment with fast readings. In my case, I used to read with my mom many types of books since I was a child and the things was that, with an adult, all kinds of readings can be very good. Of course, the books of Edgar Allan Poe are more recommended to children because of all what I said but the books of Agatha Christie, with some help, can make kids be interested in different and advanced type of reading. With these activities, we can increase children’s reading, and this can be very useful for their future.

The two famous writers gave the world a different way to tell stories and the mystery and magic of all their productions can make people believe that there is a fantastic world in which everything can happens: your head. The imagination is very important in the development of people, and this is a way to believe that nothing is so urgent, so serious, only for adults. With the imagination, we can play, and let the kid that we have inside our hearts, being alive.

Kinds of sentences

Miss Soto: I chose more part of the new than the 20 lines because the text had short lines so i thought it was better. Besides I don't know how to enlarge the picture , but i discovered that if you download it, you can see it clearly.

propiedad intelectual

La tecnología avanza cada día más con el objeto de facilitar nuestras actividades cotidianas. Es así como además de aportar en el área de las ciencias, aporta en todas las áreas que el hombre ha estudiado durante estos últimos siglos y una de las beneficiadas es el área de las letras. Contar con programas que faciliten la escritura, ortografía, orden y formalidad ha permitido al hombre crear textos que contengan idas, historias, estudios y un sinfín de información escrita que se puede conservar y dar uso de manera física. Así, la educación cuenta con información escrita y a lo largo de la historia de la educación estos textos han servido para la enseñanza de la mayoría de los alumnos quienes han adquirido la mayoría de sus conocimientos leyendo la información contenida en los libros. Sin embargo, estos textos si bien tienen la patente y la seguridad de ser propiedades privadas de sus autores, hoy en día la información que hay en internet también tiene propietarios, pero con el afán de facilitar la información que hay en la red, éstas tienen el peligro de ser copiadas y plagiadas por visitantes de los sitios donde se encuentran los escritos. La propiedad intelectual se define como “el reconocimiento de un derecho en particular a favor de un autor u otros titulares de derechos, sobre las obras del intelecto humano” lo que señala el hecho de la apropiación de información por parte de sus creadores. Es esto lo que hoy se cumple pero no en su totalidad, y por ello se debiese crear una forma más estricta para no correr el riesgo de sufrir robos intelectuales. Claro está que si esto ocurriera habría un cambio enorme de manejo de información a nivel mundial. Se supone que el avance que ha habido con la disponibilidad de información es un hecho que ha facilitado mucho a las nuevas generaciones, por lo tanto la dependencia que se ha creado con esta situación provocaría un gran descontento general. Los más perjudicados serían los estudiantes que se han criado en una Era donde todos los escritos se encuentran online y tienen el privilegio de poder ser copiados y pegados. Requeriría de un cambio de ship general que probablemente no les sea muy fácil y en definitiva, como son las nuevas generaciones, no se permitiría. Pero con todo esto, ¿es en realidad un avance?. Lamentablemente si lo miramos a nivel macro, no lo es puesto que pudiendo copiar tan fácilmente la información que se necesita desde internet, los navegadores alrededor del mundo no desarrollan un escrito propio, solo se repite la misma información para todos y no se logra desarrollar la habilidad de creación y eso es indispensable para el futuro de nuestros actuales estudiantes ya que serán ellos los que desarrollen y lleven a cabo las próximas investigaciones en distintas áreas de la humanidad. Es así como una vez más podemos ver que la tecnología actúa como facilitador en nuestras vidas, sin embargo en este caso la tecnología está facilitando de tal modo que la gente disponga de escritos y los utilice como información propia, algo que no significa un avance para la humanidad en el ámbito de estudios, sino una imposibilidad y un estancamiento intelectual a nivel mundial.

Las TIC en la educación chilena

A lo largo de la historia educacional en nuestro país, hemos sufrido grandes cambios lógicamente en pos de mejorar cada vez más las técnicas de enseñanza y esto ha traído consigo una actualización general de acuerdo con las tecnologías que nos ha presentado el mundo debido a la globalización. Más allá de los beneficios que esta actualización nos entregue, es necesario detenerse a pensar si las técnicas que Chile ha logrado adaptar gracias a influencias extranjeras, son o no las adecuadas para un progreso efectivo. Chile como todos los países del mundo, se caracteriza por presentar muchas y variadas realidades aun cuando pertenezcamos todos a la misma nación. No podemos comparar, claro está, la educación que se lleva a cabo al sur de nuestro país en islas muy lejanas con cualquier ciudad moderna como lo son Santiago o Concepción, y esto se muestra de manera notoria. Esto ocurre debido a razones geográficas y demográficas así como también por razones económicas. Es así como las realidades presentes en todo el territorio chileno ameritan distintos tipos de técnicas con las que realizar un proceso de aprendizaje. Con esto, queda más que claro que la manera de educar en un contexto, aun cuando sea efectivo en un lugar, en otro puede ser un total desastre. Con el tiempo pareciera ser que esto no ha sido tomado en cuenta y se ha vuelto muy común ver escuelas rurales con equipamientos computacionales totalmente destrozados o abandonados debido a su inutilización. ¿Es problema de los alumnos?, ¿de los profesores?, ¿de los encargados de estos “laboratorios computacionales”? la respuesta es clara, enviar equipamiento computacional sin tener en cuenta el contexto al cual se debe adaptar es un gran error y eso está a cargo de las grandes autoridades de nuestro país. Las tecnologías hoy en día son muy importantes, sin embargo no son la única y más efectiva forma de enseñar para los profesores. Las TIC (tecnologías de la información y comunicación) son un método que el ministerio de educación ha querido integrar en la educación debido a la Era del Internet que vive nuestra actual generación y busca la integración de todos los alumnos a un mundo globalizado y de información fácil de conseguir. ¿Es efectivo contar hoy en día con ellas en nuestro país? Sí, lo son, ya que como se dijo anteriormente son muy útiles para conseguir información y brinda accesibilidad a todos para trabajar con equidad. Pero, si no se tiene conocimiento suficiente para su utilización, ¿resulta factible integrarlas de igual forma? Chile debería invertir en TIC pero teniendo en cuenta de antemano, el contexto en el que se pondrán a disposición estos equipamientos. Así, por ejemplo, en ciudades capacitadas para esta tecnología debiesen tener a disposición todo tipo de equipos computacionales, y en lugares más lejanos a lo que es “ciudad”, deberían tener también a disposición estos equipos y con esto a alguien encargado que sepa manejar y enseñar a manejarlos. Es un hecho que a medida que pase el tiempo, será cada vez más necesario tener conocimiento de las nuevas tecnologías y finalmente serán imprescindibles para nuestras vidas, pero no podemos centrarnos sólo en una manera de educar. Hay tantas formas de llevar a cabo un aprendizaje como docentes para hacerlos y eso debemos respetarlo, puesto que la creatividad es una habilidad que se agradece y lamentablemente se pierde cada vez más debido a la facilidad de copiar que existe hoy en Internet.

One story, two formats

Throughout the years, we have witnessed how authors of best novels and written stories have transformed their stories to movies or into great films telling them in a similar or a different way. Books usually tell the stories in a “describing way” because of the possibility that words gives us to explain and capture features of places, stuff, environment, smells, frangances, people features etc. And in movies, the image of a scene is important, but no more than the story itself.

The story of “The million Dollar Bond Robbery” by Agatha Christie is about a theft of Scotland and London bank’s money in a liner while is crossing the sea to come to New York to increase the credits in that country. The case is investigated by Mr. Poirot who must to find the person that planned this huge robbery. Everything starts with a conversation between a woman and an important investigator: Mr. Poirot. She goes to visit him with the intention to ask him for help because of her fiancé’s troubles. Her fiance was in charge of the money that was stolen from its package in a trip aboard “The Olympia” so at that time, he was the only one guilty. Nevertheless, the lady was pretty sure that his future husband wasn’t the guilty so she wanted Mr. Poirot to discover the real guilty in this case. Mr. Poirot heard her version and then her fiance’s version to start the investigation. Then he goes to visit every single person involve in this case, any character to talk to him and corroborate his still uncertain theories. To summarize, Mr. Vavasour, the director of “London and Scottish Bank”, as I said before, wanted to increase credits outside the country to reach more area to make business. He and his associate Mr. Shaw put a million dollar bond in a locked package to transport it by a liner: “The Olympia” making responsible to the assistant general manager Mr. Ridgeway (lady’s fiancé) who was the only one that had to carry on the bonds, having the special key to open the package. So in that trip the package was opened and the bonds were stolen. The story ends when Mr. Poirot corroborates the whole story making the pieces complete the puzzle. He discovers that one of the characters within the people in charge of the money was contacted with a guy outside to steal the money before it aboard “The Olympia”. This character was Mr. Shaw who was really close to the director of “London and Scottish Bank” Mr. Vavasour, who contacted a person to receive the money and sell the bonds in New York before “The Olympia” arrived to that country.

There are many differences between the movie and the book, starting with the way it was told. The story in the book is told by Hastings while in the movie is told from outside the story. Besides, the story in the movie suffered some changes with the times within the story. Let me explain myself. The story in the book it is told in past, telling the facts of the theft days ago, and with this, the case must be found out by Mr. Poirot time after. In the movie, the story is in the present and Mr. Poirot must look for the guilty during the stolen is happening. In the video, Mr. Vavasour, the general director of the bank, with his associate Mr. Shaw, calls to Mr. Poirot to avoid the possible robbery they could suffer. They both are in charge to make this trip in the liner called “The Queen Mary” unlike in the written format called “The Olympia” and if one of them has any problem, it would be replaced by Mr. Ridgeway who always show how interested was to make this trip because of his necessity of the money because of his gambling. During the development of the story in the video format, characters like Mr. Ridgeway, give many clues to make the receptor doubt of everybody in the case. But finally everything make sense and the links are evident.

In my opinion, I have always enjoyed both ways of format to tell stories, I mean in movies or in books. But it’s different and in this case it was very well shown. For example my favorite book is called “A place called Here” which is full of description, something that you do not realize when you watch a movie. This fact happens because you focus your attention in the story instead the details of the presentation (environment). Even though sometimes the director or the producer of the movie tries to create a complete image, we need to see the scene repeated times to find details that we usually do not watch at the first time, that’s the reason why people like me likes watching the same movie many times. So in the books you enjoy when you uses words and phrases to create your own image to imagine what is happening with the story and among the characters in there. With the written story of “The million Dollar Bond Robbery” happens the same. The book plays with vocabulary including words in French, and writing dialogues mixed with description, enough to make the story more fun and interesting. But these were not enough in a video so we could see that the story has to be changed. Anyway when I have the option to read or watch a movie with the same story, I have to decide very well because it always happens to me that if I read a book, then the movie is awful for me, but when I only watch the movie, I enjoy it so much anyway. In Agatha Cristie’s story, I liked both ways but if I have to decide which I preferred, I could say that I preferred the video, because I like this kind of acting, it reminds me when I watch movies with my dad any Sunday afternoon and he starts to guess everything. Stories like this one helps me to increase my vocabulary in a funny way, and when it’s about books and stories, I enjoy very much reading them over again.

My special friend forever

I was in high school when I saw him. He was so handsome, there was a close resemblance between him and my platonic love, so I fell in love quickly with Zac. As time passed, at first I met his friends, who were skaters and friends of some friends of mine. However, it was difficult to me to meet him, because he was really shy and he didn’t use to meet people by himself. So in that situation, I had to find a way to get there. But in that period, something happened. A friend of him started to talk to me so we started a very good relationship, something that with the time, it turned to a romance. Yes, it was beautiful, but I walked away from Zac increasingly. Anyway, time passed and all of that finished, so I realized that Zac was still in my heart. With the time, Zac’s friends were still friends of mine so I decided to get close to him, anyway, he knew I does existed… I wasn’t invisible. So one day, I was in my city’s park when he arrived (of course I knew perfectly he will come), and I said hello to him to start a conversation. It was awful! Because of my nerves, but… it was the start of something new. Then we start talking often, he used to go riding bicycle to take me to a restaurant with the idea of chatting and eat chocolate cakes, unforgettable. With this, we became friends, and it was amazing the way we used to find opportunities to chat and laugh. Nevertheless, we didn’t have the courage to say anything so; we didn’t do anything until somebody appeared in his life. I lost my chance and I fell in sadness. I had to forget him, to don’t suffer more later. Then years passed and we didn’t have communication, but one day we joined in the downtown, and started talking again. We remembered past times and we laughed again. Now Zac is beside me, as my boyfriend, talking and laughing as friends, but with deeper feelings than time ago.

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