Pg 213 in "Echoes" Textbook
Question 1
It has been said that good detective writer is always honest with the reader. How does Eric Wright provided his readers with clues to the outcome of the story?
Eric Wright was creative and provided his readers with clues to the outcome of the story. At the beginning, the wife kept trying to guess what her husband was plotting, and outsmarted him while doing so. Instead of going along with his new crime story and supporting his decisions, she kept questioning his actions trying to find more information. This gave the reader clues, that the husband was up to something. The wife began to clue in, the crime in his book matched their lives perfectly, and how everything was set up to go through with the crime. The husband even hinted to his wife that they looked alike and could pass as twins if he just put on a blond wig, lipstick and glasses. The author did a good job giving the reader an outlook on to how the story was going to end.
Question 2
A common theme in detective fiction is "crime does not pay". In your own opinion, is it possible that this story sets up as situation in which crime will go unpunished?
In my opinion I think this story is set up in which the crime would go unpunished. I infer this because the husband had his plan perfectly set out, and over thought he could have got away with it if he didn't share the plot to his wife. The wife could tell he was up to something and kept firing him questions, by doing this she outsmarted him and went through with the crime. At the end of the story, the wife said everything went exactly as planned, giving the reader the assumption that the wife got away with the murder of her husband. This story was set up to which the crime would go unpunished, the wife would just have to live with the guilt of it all.
Question 3
In media res is a Latin phrase meaning "in the middle of things." Explain how the term can be applied to the opening of this story and evaluate the author's choice in employing this technique.
In media res is a narrative technique where the relating of the story begins at the midpoint, rather than at the beginning, establish setting, character, and conflict. This technique can be applied to the opening of this story. The story begins with a husband and wife at the top of a mine shaft in Sudbury. The two of them are discussing a plot for the husbands new crime book ("I want to get it right," he said. "After making a mistake in the last book about how long it takes to get from Toronto to Detroit, I want this one to be watertight."213). In the first paragraph, it starts off with an argument between the two characters. It shows the reader there is man-to man conflict as the characters are "in the middle of things".
Question 4
Describe the difference in narrative style between the two parts of the story. Determine why the author chose each style and the effectiveness of each.
The author used two narrative styles to tell the story; dialogue style and informative style. Dialogue style is past tense and uses the direct words which are said by the characters. The author uses this style at the beginning when the husband is telling his wife about the plot of his new book. The author choose dialogue because it hints at foreshadowing and later leads to irony. The reader gets a better understanding if there is conflict, what the conflict could be, imagery, the setting, and the summary of the story. When the wife begins to fire off questions to her husband about his ideas, the reader can start to see conflict forming between the two characters. Informative style is past tense and describes what is happening. This style is used at the end of the story when the plot carries out. The husband's plot to his crime novel, was actually his plan to murder his wife. The wife outsmarted him by questioning all of his actions and used her husband's plot to murder him instead. Overall, both styles were effective in this short story and gave the reader an ending they were not expecting.
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