The Thirty-Nine Steps, written by John Buchan, is a thriller/adventure novel about a detective named Richard Hannay who goes on this mission to stop the German Spies from killing Prime Minister Karoldies. Richard Hannay is an ordinary man living in his apartment when he meets a man named Scudder. Scudder tells his tale about how he is a spy and is being chased. Hannay shelters Scudder but later he is killed. While looking through Scudder’s notebook, he discovers that one June 15th, the Prime Minister is to be killed by the German spies, in order to start a war. Throughout his journey, Hannay travels throughout England, escaping from the Germans and also trying to capture the German spies. Hannay also meets others who are either good or bad. Hannay must be able to be clever and sly to trick the Germans and to save his own neck. The Thirty-Nine Steps is about the adventure of Richard Hannay, an important detective who is on the mission to solve the murders done by the German spies.
Many detective and thriller stories have different little stories concealed inside it that makes it more interesting and eye catching to the reader. Stories like The Thirty-Nine Steps and Sherlock Holmes are similar plot wise. The main characters have to use a lot of clues to proceed to the final result. One interesting plot in the Thirty-Nine steps is when Hannay goes to the old man's hut as a refugee only to discover that the old man is a German spy. Though Hannay may be smart and clever, he still couldn’t avoid being caught by a German spy. Even when we are in a desperate situation, we shouldn’t trust random strangers. When we say “yes” to someone, we never know what's going to happen. In this case, Hannay shouldn’t have easily trusted the old man. Even though it may seem like not a big harm, it could turn into a nightmare. Hannay might’ve thought that he could easily overpower the man if harm came, it might be the other way around. Hannay already had the bad feeling in his guts, then why continue going? We shouldn’t easily trust a stranger we see on the street.
When in a bad situation, we should remain calm and think before we act. When in a scary situation, we should take a couple of deep breaths and think about the solution. If we panic, our enemy, if there is a bad person in the situation, will therefore be able to take advantage of us. After Hannay realized that the old man was a German spy, he remained calm and even talked the man into giving him food. If Hannay had panicked, then the old man could have easily killed him right there on the spot. Instead, Hannay chose to remain calm and go over the situation a number of times in his head to finally decide what to do. What makes this part of the story interesting is the sarcastic dialogue between Hannay and the old man. Hannay desperately tries to lie about this situation but evidently the old man knows who he [Hannay] is and doesn’t believe Hannay’s several lies. When in a stressful situation, a clear mind is able to help us think more properly.
Survival a lot of times depends on the person’s ability to use their surroundings and materials. When at a foregin place, we don’t always have the materials we may necessarily need/want. We should take the materials that are there already or given to us and make good use of it. We are very lucky to have the materials we have now. Hannay was able to take the materials in the room where he was locked to escape. The room the old man had locked Hannay was a storage room and it was filled with bomb making materials which included dynamite. With the dynamite, Hannay was able to dangerously blow up the room and escape. Hannay knew that this situation was a life and death thing, and obviously, chose life so took the risk of setting the room on fire to escape. If we are in a life-death situation like this, we should appreciate what we have and use it wisely and carefully. If we are stranded on an island, we could take what we have and build a raft to escape or to light an SOS sign. Sometimes even the most queerist materials may come in handy one day.
The Thirty-Nine steps is an adventurous story about a clever young man named Richard Hannay who is on a quest to stop the Germans from starting a war. This is one out of ten different exciting plots in this book. Through this one adventure, we are able to learn many different lessons. Then we are able to apply these lessons to real life situations. From Hannay’s careless act of trusting strangers, we know that we should never easily trust someone we don't know. We can also see how calm Hannay remained even under a high pressure situation. Hannay was also able to use what was a given situation to escape. The THirty-Nine Steps has many exciting parts and verses but one of the most memorable parts is when Hannay encounters an old man and narrowly escapes from death.
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