Riassunto esame lingua inglese, libro consigliato: Crimes stories 20th century stories

FATHER BROWN

The Blue Cross is the first in a series of 52 stories about the famous priest-detective Father Brown. He is a

Catholic priest from Essex, he wears priests’ clothes and carries an umbrella. He is often assisted by the

reformed criminal Flambeau, who he helps to capture in this story. The detective, unlike the other fictional

ones like Holmes, relies on intuition rather than logical deduction. Moreover he knows very well the criminal

mind because he listens to penitent criminals confessing to him in church.

MAIN THEMES

• Appearances can be misleading. Valentin, the French head of police tries to travel unobserved.

Flambeau, the great French criminal is a master of disguise, Father Brown can mislead people even

though he doesn’t change his appearance.

• Great detectives: detective work and investigation, Valentin works and follows the clues but at the end of

the story Father Brown reveals his method and gives us a complete explanation.

• The gentleman thief: popular figure in crime fiction. He is clever, educated, non violent, admired for his

skills even by the police, he is a kind of anti-hero for the public.

THE BLUE CROSS

Valentin is in the boat, arriving in Harwich. He is on his way from Brussels to London in the trail of a criminal.

He is trying to follow him passing unobserved. Flambeau is an international criminal, years ago almost every

day the news was all about his crimes or escapes from the police and the law. He was very tall and strong,

but he was not violent: his crimes were mainly concearning robbery. Valentin is looking everybody in the train

to see if someone is particularly tall, but all he could notice is a very short Roman Catholic priest with a large

umbrella. Valentin laughs and finds him clumsy because he is saying anyone he has a real silver cross with

blue stones in one of his paper parcels. As soon as he arrived in London he goes to Scotland Yard to

regularise his position and arrange for help in case of need. Then he thinks about his method, which is

following the unreasonable, going to wrong places, or places which are odd and can give a clue. He goes in

a restaurant and has a black coffee. He realizes he put salt in his coffee, and asks the waiter why he played

this joke on his customers. The waiter is bewildered and thinks that two clergymen that were in the

restaurant earlier could have done that. One of them also threw soup at the wall, even though they seem

very kind and respectful, and also paid the bill. Valentin goes round the next corner, following the clue, and

notices a greengrocer with the signs of oranges and nuts swapped around. The fruiterer blamed the one of

the clergymen. Valentin continues across the square and a two policemen joined him in the research. They

catch a yellow bus, where the clergymen were seen before, and when they got out Valentin noticed a broken

window. He goes in that restaurant and after lunch he asks why the window was broken. He answered that

one of the clergymen paid three times the bill and then broke the window. Then they went to Bullok streets,

here there were tunnels, streets with few lights. Valentin goes into a very colourful sweetshop. As soon as

the woman inside sees the policemen asks if they are there because of the parcel. She explains that the

clergymen asked her if he left a parcel in the shop, and if she found it she would have sent it to a particular

address. At first she couldn’t find it, then she found it and sent it. They go in Hampstead Heath where they

find the two clergymen sitting on a bench. Valentin isn’t sure about the taller priest (whether he is Flambeau

disguised or not) but he has no doubt about the short one (the one he met in the train, he was Father brown

from Essex bringing up a silver cross to show it at a congress). Valentin is trying to give sense to the story,

he doesn’t understand the reason of all the oddities during the day (windows, soup). They approach hiding

and hear a conversation about theology. Then Flambeau asks kindly to give to him the cross and admit his

identity. The short priest denies and Flambeau explains he already has the parcel because he had swapped

them before with a copy. Father Brown says he already know this technique, and he already knew from the

beginning that he was Flambeau. He had noticed the bracelet (a criminal insignia) and that he changed the

parcels, so he changed them again. Then he went to the sweetshop and left the parcel and the address, now

the parcel is to his friend in Westminster. Flambeau is bewildered and upset because he didn’t expected all

of that. Father Brown continues saying he knows that police are behind them because he brought them there

leaving clues all over the town. The policemen came out and both Valentin and Flambeau are congratulating

to the cleverness of Father Brown.

RUTH RENDELL

She is a crime writer, who also write under the pseudonym Barbara Vine. She is famous for her psychological thrillers

and murder mysteries. She is a very private person, little is known of her family life. She worked also as a journalist at a

local newspaper, reporter and editor too. She married a fellow journalist, she gave up her job. A year later their only son

was born. The themes of her stories concern the complexities and consequences of obsession, crime, criminal mind.

Psychopats are often the focus of her psychological thrillers: people with a personality disorder who lack of empathy,

often lie (imitate human emotion, such ash affection) and are often violent and dangerous.

MAIN THEMES

• History repeated: the events of the first half of the story are mirrored in the second half, which ends with

a shocking climax and a sudden understanding. Ivan’s two marriages are similar because they’re both

not going well, he is bonding with the nanny, he cares more about the house and the money rather than

his son/daughter. The wives are jealous of the nanny because she spends more time with their child and

even their husband.

• Inheritance and family traits: similarities between the parents and their children are explored, and even

between the childrem themselves. They’re similar to the father and similar to each other because they

don’t speak, and they’re often naughty.

• Lies: Nell lies to Charlotte saying she has a boyfriend and to the police about Charlotte’s death. Ivan lies

to his son Daniel and to the police about the cause of Charlotte’s death. Later on Denise lies to Nell

saying she has a boyfriend.

MOTHER’S HELP

Nell is a live-in nanny, she works for a wealthy professional couple. The son of the couple, Daniel, is almost

three and Nell is upset by his unwillingness to speak. He is not deaf, he is intelligent, fond of motor vehicles.

He likes sitting in the driver’s seat and pull the levers and buttons and sound the horn. Charlotte was always

at work, whereas Ivan started taking days off (he works in a gallery, he told his wife he wants to spend more

time with the baby) Nell and Ivan are bonding, they’re spending time together he drove her when she went

shopping. Nell sat in the front in the passenger seat, Daniel in the back. Ivan went to close the garage door,

and suddenly Daniel lunged forward across the driver’s seat and he takes off the handbrake. The car shot

forward, Ivan was about to get hit, Nell screamed and cried because she didn’t know how to drive. She was

upset by seeing Ivan in danger, she realizes she loved him. Ivan kissed her. Daniel said his first sentence

“Daniel drive car”. They told Charlotte wat happened and they told other people too to prove that he was

intelligent (her mother, the doctor). Charlotte is jealous because she thinks her son loves the nanny more

than his mum, and she is jealous of her spending time with Ivan but she is relieved at the idea that Nell has a

boyfriend and when they will get married she won’t be a nanny anymore. Ivan took Nell to a motel where

they pretended to be married. Thinking of a life together, he seemed more concerned in losing the house and

money than the son. One day while Nell is cutting vegetables, Daniel surprised her hugging her legs, and

she cut her hand in a long gash. Charlotte was in the garden planting roses and decides to take Nell to the

hospital without telling Ivan, who was upstairs. They’re in the garage, even Daniel is coming. Ivan came out

and realizes what is happening, he is mad to Charlotte and worried for Nell, he decides to take her. He is in

the driving seat while Charlotte is trying to close the garage door. Daniel says “Drive car” and Ivan put the

transmission into drive, took off the handbrake and push the accelerator. She gave a loud scream. Nell saw

Charlotte’s expression full of terror and awareness of what was happening. Charlotte fell, cried, screamed

and died. Nell was shocked, she jumped and shrieks, Daniel is calm in the back seat, Ivan takes control. He

manipulates Nell, who can’t say no to him, and encourage her to tell it was Daniel, like the previous time. The

people next door heard the noise of the car going through the garage door, they helped Nell and reassure

her that Daniel couldn’t be blamed. The police listen to them and they agreed that it was not to mention again

to Daniel (from a psichological point of view) and Daniel could only sit in the car if supervised. They gave

their evidence and the virdict was “death by misadventure”. After a year Nell and Ivan got married and after

five years they had Emma, when Daniel was nine. He was quite jealous and asked about her mother. They

answered in a car crash, but they know soon he will want to know the details. Ivan wants to tell him the same

story he told the police. They moved to a larger house. Nell was against engaging a live-in nanny, but a girl

employed by Ivan at the gallery, Denise, was sometimes baby-sitting the children. Ivan starts coming home

later in the evening. Emma is hyperactive and doesn’t want to go to sleep and stop playing with Denise. She

doesn’t like to speak as well as Daniel when he was little. Ivan doesn’t know what to tell Daniel if he asks

again about her mother, he wants him to go away to school. One day Nell was home alone with Emma. She

was putting the vacuum cleaner in the broom cupboard and Emma shut her in there. The room had an

handle only on the outside. Emma won’t let her out, she fell asleep in the living room. Nell is upset not only

because the room was dark and airless, but she was also worried about Emma in the house alone, she

might hurt herself. Fortunately, Daniel came home earlier because he forgot his music for the violin lesson.

He released his mom. Ivan came home late, she told him in case they split up, she wants the custody of the

children. Ivan explained Emma her error, suggested a fresh start with Nell, and gave a party for the 7th

wedding anniversary. He told everyone what had happened and suddenly Nell realizes that history is

repeating. She screams.

D. H. LAWRENCE

He was an English writer. At first he didn’t do well at school, after a long illness he studied and became a

teacher at University Colle