The midnight visitor

Robert Arthur

Questions / Activities

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Objectives

Warming up

The Midnight Visitor


• Have you ever seen a spy movie, or read a spy story? What is it? Do you like it? Why?

• What is a spy like? What is your general impression of a spy? Look at the prompts and pictures on the next slide and try to think of as many words as possible to describe people who work as a secret agent.

Age, appearance

Personality

Tasks,responsibilities

Reasons


Young or old?Handsome or

ordinary-looking?

AdventurousCourageous Intelligent

Shrewd Presence of mind

Collect and pass on significant information Recruit new agents

For money?For ambition? For patriotism?

They live in a secret world of deception, fraud ,

and sometimes violence.

Espionage


Espionage • [Fr.] spying

Espionage ： the secret collection of information, or intelligence, the source of such information wishes to protect from disclosure.

Intelligence ： evaluated and processed information needed to make decisions. Intelligence generally has a national security connotation and therefore exists in an aura of secrecy.


An Example• British intelligence agents secretly intercepted conversations of U.N. Secretary-

General Kofi Annan in his New York office last year.

Questions / ActivitiesWarming up

CIA• Central Intelligence Agency • Mainly for gathering secret information that may bear on national security • Created in 1947• The CIA also coordinates the activities of the United States intelligence community, which

includes agencies such as the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the National Security Agency (NSA).

• In addition, the CIA takes overall responsibility for gathering information from other U.S. intelligence agencies, analyzing the separate pieces of information from each source, and providing a recommendation to the president of the United States and the president’s advisers.


FBI• Federal Bureau of Investigation • Chief investigative agency of the United States

federal government and a division of the U.S. Department of Justice

• The primary responsibility for counterespionage activities within the US., coordinating its work with the CIA, which is responsible for such operations outside the US.


FBI• It also provides services to other law enforcement agencies, including

fingerprint identification, laboratory analysis of criminal evidence, police training, and access to a centralized crime information database.

• Because of its broad mandate, the FBI is one of the most powerful and controversial agencies in the government.

• The bureau traces its origins to 1908, when the attorney general appointed a small group of investigators within the Department of Justice.


KGB• Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti (State Security Committee)• the government agency of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in charge of the

Soviet political police from 1954 to 1991. • The KGB, the last in a series of Soviet security agencies dating from 1917, was officially

disbanded when the USSR collapsed. • During its years of operation the agency’s main directive was to protect the Soviet regime

from internal and external threats by means of a vast police and spy network.• During the cold war, both the FBI and the CIA concentrated their attention primarily on KGB

of the USSR.


Key points• Ausable was a secret agent but he didn’t look like that .he

was very fat but not much tall but he is much alert in his mind.• Ausable had a room on the sixth and top floor of a French

Hotel.• Fowler was a writer. Ausable told him that he would get an

important report that night concerning some new missiles. This report could change the course of history.• Fowler saw Max, another secret agent who threatens Fowler

with a pistol demanding the report.

Key points• Ausable handled Max cleverly. He told Max that he

would complain to the hotel authorities about the balcony Which should be closed immediately.• There was a loud knocking at the door. Ausable

smiled and told that that was the police.• Max got nervous. His face was black with

anger .He asked Ausable to send the police back. In the meantime he would go and wait on the balcony.• Max jumped into the balcony. In this way Ausable

got rid of Max.

Summary• Fowler is surprised to see a secret agent Ausable

who is too fat to be a secret agent. Ausable tells him that he was going to get an important paper for which many men have risked their lives. When both of them reach Ausable’s room.• Fowler is scared to see a man standing in the

room.Max who is tall and thin man and is holding an automatic pistol in his hand . He had entered his room by using a key to take the report concerning a new missile. Ausable ,sensing the danger, fabricated a story about the non-existent balcony which Max believed to be true.

Summary• Ausable complained that it was due to the

balcony that somebody had entered his room the second time. After sometime there was knocking at the door.Ausable again befooled Max by saying that it was the police who wanted to come inside to provide him protection. Max wanted to run away to avoid the police and jumps to his death into that non-existent balcony.

Summary• Ausable complained that it was due to the

balcony that somebody had entered his room the second time. After sometime there was knocking at the door.Ausable again befooled Max by saying that it was the police who wanted to come inside to provide him protection. Max wanted to run away to avoid the police and jumps to his death into that non-existent balcony.

About the Background • This is a common story of a secret agent or

international spy. What is uncommon is the way the author describes this character. Ausable does not fit the description of secret agents in Hollywood movies or popular literature. Unlike 007, James Bond for example, who is young, strong, handsome, and irresistible to women, Ausable is just a "sloppy fat man". Physically he is no threat to anybody. He is not even very healthy. He carries no guns. He is no linguistic genius--everybody could tell where he comes from his foreign accent

About the Background • He lives in a small hotel, communicates with his

comrades by ordinary telephone. There seems to be nothing mysterious, romantic or even exciting in his life or his operations. No pistol fire, no dark-eyed beauties, no drug or poison. But it is precisely this commonness that makes him so uncommon. The author is very clever in portraying him in this way in contrast to the general image because it makes the story fresh, unexpected and dramatic.

About the Background • When we make a character sketch, we often

begin by describing a person's looks. But although physical appearance is important, what matters more is how the person acts, talks, thinks and deals with people. And we should try to find a word or phrase that can best sum up our impressions of this person. In the case of Ausable, the most outstanding feature must be his wisdom, his presence of mind and his quick wit. He is not strong physically, but he can beat his enemy.

About the Background • He is fat and slow, but he reacts very quickly. He

carries no weapon, but he has an excellent brain which is more powerful than any magic weapon. He appears helpless, but he gets rid of his deadly enemy without lifting a finger. There is no shooting or fighting, but the battle of wits is even more exciting and gripping.

Outline of the Text • Part I (Para. 1-5 ) tells us who Ausable is and why Fowler

wants to see him. In this part, our impression of Ausable is no different from Fowler's. Therefore, like Fowler, we as readers are not at all prepared for what is to happen next.• Part II (Para.6-16) describes the unexpected visit of

Ausable's adversary Max. This gives Fowler as well as us readers a great start. Ausable too says he is totally unprepared, but in fact he is very calm. He talks as if he has admitted defeat. Actually he is already laying out a plan to deal with the situation. That is why he keeps talking about the balcony.

Outline of the Text • Part III (Para.17-26) tells us how Ausable

outwits Max and makes him jump onto the "balcony". The last two sentences give the story a surprising ending. It is only then that the truth has finally dawned on Fowler and us readers as to what has really happened to Max.

Theme• Wisdom is more powerful than any weapon.• Never judge a person by his appearance.• First impressions could be misleading.• He who laughs last, laughs longest.

Education

The midnight visitor