Laura Palomeque

Reading comprehension – The Murders in the Rue Morgue – Second activity

School of languages

Inglés II y Aprestamiento a la traducción.

David Vásquez Giraldo

28/08/2019

1. Using the macro-rules by Van Dijk, give 5 examples of each macro-rule from “The Murders
in the Rue Morgue”.

1) Construction:
 When the police and the neighbors were trying to open the door, they heard two
voices, one of them said “My God!”. No one could understand what the second
voice said because it was in a foreign language.
 Behind the house, the old woman was found with her head almost cut off with the
knife that was on the floor of the room.
 The murderers had escaped through one of the two windows in the room. Both
windows were locked with an iron nail in the wood at their sides for not to open
them.

2) Generalization:
 Strength more than human; wildness less than human; a murder without reason;
horror beyond human understanding; and a voice which made no sound that men
could understand Someone who has lost his mind, only a madman could have
done these murders.
 Someone had taken the daughter’s neck in his powerful fingers and pressed with
fearful strength until her life was gone. The daughter had been strangled.

3) Deletion:
 Near to the fireplace there was some gray hair and skin with blood from a human
head. A great force is necessary to pull out the hair at one time. Also, her head
was cut almost completely from the body.
 We read in the newspaper about an old woman and her daughter, living alone,
had been killed in the middle of the night.

2. Find 10 structures using past participle through the chapters 1-6. Rewrite them identifying
the sequence of events. Use the three narrative tenses (past simple, past continuous and
past perfect) or at least two of them.
  “As it was a book which few had ever heard of (1st event), this chance brought us
together in an old bookstore (2nd event)”.
 “One night we were walking (~~~ during) down one of Paris’s long and dirty streets.
Both of us were (3rd) busy with our thoughts. Neither had spoken (1st) for perhaps
fifteen minutes. It seemed as if we had each forgotten (2nd) that the other was there,
at his side”.
 “Only yesterday, in the newspaper, there was (3rd) an article about the actor Chantilly,
an article which was not friendly to Chantilly, not friendly at all. We noticed (4th) that
the writer of the article had used (2nd) some words taken from a book we both had
read (1st)”.
 “Above the fireplace they found (2nd) the dead body of the daughter; it had been (1st)
put up into the opening where the smoke escapes to the sky”.
 “Mrs. L’Espanaye had put (1st) money in his bank, beginning eight years before. Three
days before her death she took out (2nd) of the bank a large amount of money, in gold.
A man from the bank carried (3rd) it for her to her house”.
 “While he was going up (~~~) the stairs he heard (1st) two voices, one low and soft,
and one hard, high, and very strange — the voice of someone who was certainly not
French, the voice of a foreigner”.
 “When we had finished (1st) reading the newspaper’s account of the murders neither
Dupin nor myself said (2nd) anything for a while”.
 “Someone had taken (1st) the daughter’s neck in his powerful fingers and pressed (2nd)
with fearful strength until her life was gone (3rd)”.
 “This much we had learned (1st) from the newspapers, my friend Dupin and I.
Interested by it, we had gone (2nd) to look at the house and the bodies. Dupin was
now explaining (~~~) to me what he had learned (3rd) there”.
 “It is a picture of the marks on the daughter’s neck. The doctors said (2nd) these marks
were made (1st) by fingers”.
 “As the window went up (2nd) it carried (3rd) with it the top part of the nail, the head.
When I closed (4th) the window the head of the nail was (5th) again in its place. It
looked (6th) just as it had looked (1st) before”.
 “This idea rose (3rd) in their minds when they heard (2nd) how the money was brought
(1st) to the house three days before the killings.

3. Write a summary including information in chapters 1-6

The narrator tells us the story about Dupin, a young man who he met August Dupin in a
bookstore, and how Dupin solve a mystery with his great reasoning power which the
author was astonished.

The mystery was placed in the summer of 1840 in Paris, in the Rue Morgue street. Mrs.
and Miss L’Espanaye were living alone in their house. On July 7, this old woman and her
daughter had been found dead by the neighbors who heard their screams in the early
morning, when they were running to the house, the cries stopped. They forced the door
because no one had answered it. They heard two voices, coming from the fourth floor,
one of them said “My God!” in French. The neighbors had different nationalities but none
could understand what the second voice said.

The door of the fourth floor was forced too because it was locked on the inside. They
found a horror scene, the room was in the wildest possible order. There was blood
everywhere, a knife was lying on the floor; in front of the fireplace, there was some gray
hair and skin with blood from a human head; clothes had been thrown around the room;
on the floor, there were two bags containing gold; and above the fireplace, there was the
dead, still warm body of the daughter. The marks on her neck showed that she had been
strangled. Behind the house, the old woman was found with her head almost cut off with
the knife that was on the floor of the room. All neighbors said the two windows of the
room was closed, there was nowhere to escape.

The police did not know where to begin to solve this mystery, but Dupin did. He and the
narrator were to the house, while they were inspecting the house and its surroundings,
Dupin was absorbed, he realized what the police had ignored. He was thinking the way the
murderers had escaped, done it through one of the two windows in the room. Both
windows were locked with an iron nail in the wood at their sides for not to open them.
However, when Dupin was inspecting more closely, he effortlessly opened the inner lock
of one of them, with a button which he had found. The second window had a button too.
The nails were holding the windows closed, therefore, the murderers or murderer could
close the window from outside. Dupin was sure the murderer had escaped through one of
the windows, they looked the same but one of them. But, only someone with special
strength and training could had gone up and down the lightning rod on the side of the
house.

Dupin said the murders cause was not the gold in the bags, murders with no reason. The
gray hair found in front of the fireplace was not from a human, but maybe it was from an
animal. Dupin had made a picture of the marks on the daughter’s neck, but it did not seem
the marks had made by human fingers, but maybe they seemed to be marks of the hand
of an animal. The mystery was being clarified by Dupin using his reasoning power. The
hands which had killed Miss L’Espanaye, the second voice which none could understand
and the gray hair was lying in front of the fireplace were from an orangutan.

The voice that said "My God!" was from a man who was terrified of what the animal had
done. The orangutan had escaped from its owner, probably a sailor. In the newspaper had
been published that the man who owned the orangutan could have it again if he came to
our house to get it. Dupin had invited this sailor, and he questioned him about the
Murders in the Rue Morgue. The sailor told him how he took the orangutan from the
jungle and had kept it in his house in Paris, and how on night of July the animal escaped
and went to the Rue Morgue street, entered in the house of Mrs. and Miss L’Espanaye.
Dupin gave this report to the Chief of the police.