The Third Floor Flat Short Story

Improved Essays
“How a Good Mystery Can Be” or “What Makes a Good Mystery” From personal experience, mysteries end up becoming repetitive in nature, mirroring aspects from other stories; I often call them, “borrowed stories.” A good mystery is one that creates an environment filled with suspense and relation that entices and involves the audience. Readers must feel as if they are part of plot’s upbringing, becoming detectives themselves, and with the challenges that come with it. In the world created by British author, Dame Agatha Christie, introduces the mystery of “The Third-Floor Flat.” This particular work revolves around the murder of a middle-aged woman in an apartment or flat, hence the title of the story. “At any rate, if there’s anyone else in the …show more content…
Thrill and suspense is the feeling of excitement and anticipation that gradually holds on to the reader. In The Third-Floor Flat, the element of suspense is witnessed after Donovan Bailey and Jimmy Faulkner make their way out of the coal lift. “Light won’t come on. Dud bulb.” Donovan tries to navigate his way while simultaneously bumping at unfamiliar things through the dark unfamiliar apartment setting. The lights being off gives us a ‘dark’ viewpoint of the story. The story conceals something from the reader, thus creating suspense and the urge of anticipation. It is common knowledge that if it is dark it is hard to see, in essence we only learn things from what the narrator knows in his limited view. “Everything looked neat and commonplace and miles removed from any suggestion of violence or gore.” The section in the story where suspense takes a gradually larger approach is when Detective Hercule Poirot enters Patricia’s flat. From this point on, suspense develops in a linear path through the detective’s investigations. To begin with, H. Poirot checks how and where the woman was murdered. Poirot soon reveals a note he recovered saying that a person with the initials J.F. was with the murdered woman. The detective’s discovery adds suspense as it opens another discovery breakthrough for the readers, and a different lead. Later on the detective learns that the evidence he has …show more content…
The characters than an author creates gives a reason and a driving force to the purpose of his or her whole story. Author Agatha Christie creates the dynamic characters Donovan Bailey, and Detective Hercule Poirot to be the main focus of the story. My personal focus is on the character development of Donovan Bailey-Grant. The first time I read and observed Donovan Bailey, I characterized him as a strong, self-assured, and persistent person besides being Patricia’s boyfriend. An illustration of this was when Donovan was arguing with Patricia, who ‘unknowingly’ dropped key to the door of her flat. “…besides leaving it behind on every possible occasion”-Donovan. He was being uncooperative in Patricia’s behalf considering he wasn’t helping Patricia look or seek a solution to find the missing key, this exemplifies his personality. Many of Donovan’s lines characterizes his personality, the use of ‘flat’ words such as: “thingummybob,” and the constant yelling of “damn” as he bumps in the dark room. Which again adds to the aspect of why he failed in his way of misleading Donovan, probably because he didn’t think through it and in comparison, he wasn’t quick-witted unlike Jimmy. Throughout the development of the plot and through the detective’s investigations, I noticed that Donovan changes too. In contrast to my first characterization, I now see that he is somewhat a

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