Places and exchanges : how do people communication and travel from one place to another in the early 20th century ?

Notion anglais

Places and exchanges

Hello I am going to deal with the notion of places and exchanges.

First of all let me define the subject ; A space can be defined like an area, a place or a particular part of a place, piece of land or country. An exchange can be a form of communication, which is the imparting or exchanging of information by speaking, writing or using some other medium. We may wonder how do people communicate and travel from one place to another at the early 20 th century. I have chosen one document which illutrate all aspects of the notion and this document is the short story of Mabel. First I will talk about the differents ways to travel Asia. And in a second time I will talk about the differents ways to communicate and exchange informations.

First let me resume brievly the short story of Mabel written by William Sumerst Maugham in 1924. The story takes place in Burma in the early 20th century, a narrator realed us the short story of Mabel and George. These two person were engaged when they met each other in England but some unexpected events pushed back the day of their wedding. Seven years later they had to see each other to officialize their wedding but George was panicked and decided to ran away and to escape to Mabel. Goerge decided to write a letter to sorry to Mabel, but when he arrived in Singapour he bacame aware that Mabel follow him. So he decided to change city but in each city or, place a telegraph of Mabel was waiting for him. So he decided to live near Tibet where Mabel can't find him but she fially find the place where he was hidden. They both are affraid to see each other but the finally got married and happy.

In this story many ways of transport are used in particular by George. He used the steamship to go to Mandalay. He used a cart too, many ways of transport needed animals at this era. Mabel used to travel in ships which were a way very used for trade at this era. George used a moto-car to join his wife. Of course it was not the same than today but at this era the concept was already invented. George took the ship to escape to Mabel when she arrived in Burma, when he became aware that Mabel followed him he decided to take the train to go to Bangkok. Finally he took again the ship to go to Saigon trying to escape to Mabel again and again. He travelled across Asia taking differents transports and Mabel followed him taking same or other medium of transportation. As we can see George was panicked and took many differents means of tranportation whereas it was difficult to travel at this era. He principaly took ships but also trains ans moto-car. At this era travel was not very easy but today is more easy because we c an take cars, trains which are mor developped, we can also take airplane which constituate the main difference between the era of the story and nowedays.

Second I will talk about the means of communication in the short story and at this era in general. At the beginning of the story Mabel and George were separated. So they can't speak of course, so they used some other means to communicate. They first used letters which was problably one of the only way to communicate. Later when George tried to escape to Mabel, she used to send telegraph to George, this medium of communication has disepear today. Nowedays we send messages, textos, we used to call people, it's more fast. We have also mails and social neworks.

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