The Innocence of Father Brown - book report
G.K. Chesterton
Born in London (1874), G.K. Chesterton was educated at St. Paul’s, but never went to college. He went to art school. In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown.
Chosen stories:
Flying Stars
Exposition: In this part of the story we know that the thief talks about his last crime.
Rising action: when we start to know the characters and we see that there is a gift.
Climax: The climax of this, as of all else, was the moment when the two front doors at the back of the scene flew open, showing the lovely moonlit garden, but more prominently showing the famous professional guest; the great Florian, dressed up as a policeman.
The Falling Action/Resolution: we can take as the falling action when the diamond fell on the turf and father brown took it.
Invisible Man
Exposition:: The setting of "The Invisible Man" is Camden Town, a district of north London. A young man, John Turnbull Angus, walks into a café and proposes marriage to the waitress, Laura Hope, who appears to be the only member of staff on the premises. One assumes that the two are not complete strangers to each other, but this is not made clear. She turns him down but, because he refuses to take no for an answer, she tells him the story of her complicated love-life.
Rising Action: The rising action can be described as the exact moment when Laura starts talking about the two people that proposed to her marry.
Climax: The point where Smythe is being chased by the killer and making him reach the maximum point of stress about the killer.
Falling Action: When Father Brown arrived and investigated the case and how the killer does the crime.
Resolution: The solution of the mystery revolves around the fact that, according to Chesterton and Father Brown, people tend to observe only what they expect to regard as being out of the ordinary.
The secret garden
Exposition: Aristide Valentin is hosting a dinner at his house and he was late but not worried because he had his servant Ivan keeping an eye on the entrance door. All the guests arrive and they are introduced.
Rising action: The first murder happens in the garden, there’s no witness and they figured that the murderer used O’Brien sword to commit the crime.
Climax: The next morning there’s another murder in the library.
Falling action: Everyone was trying to understand who was the murderer because their suspects that were O’Brien that was proposing to Lady Margaret and Mr. Bayne had left the night before. Dr. Simon's questions help them to figure out who it was.
Resolution: They figured out that the murderer was Valentin, the chief of police, that’s why it was hard to get clues, he’s very experienced that nobody even though of him until the end, and when they went to find him but he had already killed himself.
For me it was a great story and very catchy, kept the reader interested and I liked the plot a lot.
The Honour of Israel Gow:
Exposition: Detectives come to investigate the death of Earl that was buried by his servant, the Israel Gow.
Rising action: The detectives only have some bizarre pieces of evidence, that they cannot find a relation between.
Climax: A scary atmosphere takes over when they discover that the body was dug up and that his skull was removed. They were three headless men around the grave.
Falling action: All the detectives think that this could’ve been a satanist act. Seems that Earl wasn’t the last good man born in his family after all.
Resolution: At the end, nobody knew exactly what was the cause of Earl’s death but everyone moved on, even Israel's Gow and he took all the gold with him.
Purpose of the story
These stories had the purpose of making the reader differentiate between good and evil characters. They also include the character of Father Brown who is based on Father John O'Connor, the priest who would later help Chesterton to become a follower of the Catholic faith.
Opinion about the stories
Alfonso: For me, the stories were good because they had that mystery that could make it better and the suspense that always made an effort to keep it as a good story.
Justine:For me the secret garden was a great story and very catchy, kept the reader interested and I liked the plot a lot. Is also the type of story that I like so yes I would definitely recommend it.
But on the other hand I didn’t like The Honour of Israel Gow because for me the plot wasn’t that catchy, if you don’t make the reader interested in the first page they won't want to keep reading, it will get boring and that’s what happened to me with this story. It was missing something about the plot to catch my attention.
