The Voice, Agatha Christie

Résumé du document

This document contains corrected exercises on the work "The Voice" by Agatha Christie.

Here are the questions :
How did Mrs Harter react the first and second time she heard Patrick's voice? Why?
What makes this story frightening?
Give your own explanation of what happened.

Translation in French
Translate the passage from “Mary – can you hear me, Mary?...” (l. 13) to “...won't you Mary?” (l. 14).

Creative writing

5. Continue this mystery story. (150-200 words)

In spite of her age – she was getting on for 78 – Janet Blakeley stepped briskly into the first-class carriage to Pemberton. It was 11pm and fortunately there was only one other passenger in the compartment: a man in his early forties who was lying on the seat snoring noisily.
“Good,” she thought, “I won't have to talk!”

She sat down silently, took Julian's letter out of her handbag and started reading it for the umpteenth time. All of a sudden, she felt ill-at-ease and raised her eyes...

Extraits

[...] She opened the envelope, inside there was a letter. While reading it she was looking worse and worse. She was so surprised that she thought that it was a joke. She looked at the mysterious man and asked if it was real. `That's real and you start tomorrow Ms. Blakeley, welcome on board, welcome to the MI5' he responded. `Am I not too old for this?' she asked `No. Your mission starts tomorrow agent Blakeley' he said. Then he got off the train and left Ms. Blakeley stunned. [...]

[...] "Good," she thought, won't have to talk "She sat down silently, took Julian's letter out of her handbag and started reading it for the umpteenth time. All of a sudden, she felt ill-at-ease and raised her eyes . All of a sudden, she felt ill-at-ease and raised her eyes and saw a man. She knew him, she saw him earlier at the train station. She remembered he was staring at her but she wasn't really paying attention before entering the train. [...]

[...] What makes this story frightening? The story is frightening because we nor Mrs Harter know why Mrs Harter is hearing Patrick's voice. Furthermore, Patrick is supposed to be dead so that's scary because a dead man talks through the radio. We don't know if it's a ghost, a joke from somebody or Mrs Harter's imagination. Give your own explanation of what happened. I think Mrs Harter is imagining the voice because she did something wrong to Patrick and then she thinks he came back to haunt her. [...]