Plot devices in Agatha Christie's novels
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article was considered for deletion and requires cleanup according to the discussion. Please help improve this article to meet Wikipedia's quality standards or discuss the issue on the talk page. (February 2008) |
 |
This article does not cite any references or sources. (February 2008) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. |
Agatha Christie’s reputation as “The Queen of Crime” was built by the large number of classic plot devices that she introduced, or for which she provided the most famous example.
[edit] Plot devices
[edit] Something odd is noticed
A character notices something odd, but cannot identify what it is.
This is a very common clue to the reader that something specific should be regarded as relevant in the immediate events. In “The Mystery of the Spanish Chest” a character seems to remember that there was something odd about a room. Poirot remembers that she is puzzled, and later prompts her to remember that a screen was in the wrong place. This is also used to heighten suspense as to whether the person concerned will "remember" the crucial item, or, having remembered it, whether they can communicate with the detective before being silenced, as for example in After the Funeral, where Helen Abernethie is attacked while trying to telephone through information about 'something odd' she has remembered which gives a clear clue as to the killer.
In many other examples, a person appears familiar for some reason. In her early novels, Christie sometimes uses this to indicate that the person is someone else in disguise, but later (when her plot machinery is less incredible) the reason for the familiarity is more subtle. Familiarity, especially in the eyes, is often used to foreshadow illegitimate children or hidden family relations, as in Hercule Poirot's Christmas.
[edit] Missing clues
Attention is drawn to something that should be there and isn’t
In Murder on the Links, Poirot draws the attention of Hastings to footprints in one of two flower beds. Hastings is misled into thinking that Poirot is interested in the footprints, but he is actually interested in their absence from the other bed, where they should have also been found.
This plot device – which appears in several different forms throughout her novels – was borrowed by Christie from Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story, “Silver Blaze”. In this, Sherlock Holmes refers to “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time”, where the “curious” thing is the fact that the dog does not bark rather than that it does. Christie effectively admits the debt in the tenth chapter of Cards on the Table when her crime novelist character, Ariadne Oliver, explicitly mentions the source. The same reference is also specifically mentioned by Poirot in “Murder in the Mews”.
[edit] Unconnected remark explains mystery
The detective draws an inference from something overheard or unconnected
In the first chapter of Lord Edgware Dies Hastings tells the reader that Poirot has always attributed his solution of this mystery to “a chance remark of a stranger in the street”. (The remark – “If they had just had the sense to ask Ellis right away” – has nothing directly to do with the mystery.) This is just one of many examples when the nature of the mystery is explained by an epiphany in which the detective makes a relevant discovery on the strength of a random occurrence.
[edit] Opportunity mixed with premeditation
The murder proves to be an opportunistic crime complicating a complex one
In Murder on the Links most of the confusing elements of the crime are discovered to have been part of an elaborate plan by the victim to stage his own death and disappear. It is when he is happened upon by the real murderer that the final elements are added to the puzzle.
Similarly, in “The Mystery of the Spanish Chest” the victim himself plans to hide in the chest and catch his wife with the man that he suspects of being her lover. The murderer kills him while he is in the chest, resulting in a more complex situation to be solved than might otherwise have arisen.
[edit] Hidden in plain sight
A significant item is hidden “in plain sight”
In Murder on the Links Poirot stresses the potential importance of a length of lead pipe that is completely overlooked by a rival detective who only focuses on very small clues.
In a sense, many of Christie’s novels employ the same device on a different level, in the sense that the murderer is rarely “the person one would least suspect”: more usually he or she is a character that has been very visible from early in the novel.
[edit] “No one ever notices …”
It was Christie’s assertion that no one ever notices someone waiting upon them. In Sparkling Cyanide the murderer dresses as a waiter in order to poison a glass of champagne, while in Death in the Clouds the murderer dresses as a steward aboard an aircraft to prick the victim with a poisoned thorn. Miss Marple has the same experience in The Thirteen Problems, where a second chambermaid is able to enter a hotel suite in full view without being noticed.
This is a somewhat contentious device on Christie’s part, but it was also used by G. K. Chesterton in at least one of his Father Brown stories ("The Invisible Man").
[edit] Identities are concealed
Another contentious plot device used repeatedly in Christie’s work is the concealment of identity. In Third Girl, Taken at the Flood, A Murder is Announced, Hercule Poirot's Christmas and After the Funeral characters are able to pass themselves off as relatives who have been unseen for considerable periods. In Elephants Can Remember, the identity of the murderer is switched with that of the victim at the victim's own request.
More incredibly, in Third Girl a young woman fails to notice that her stepmother is also living with her in disguise as a flatmate and, in Murder in Mesopotamia a woman marries a man without realising that it is actually her former husband. In Why Didn't They Ask Evans?, a man well-known to all the major characters is able to disguise himself as another man equally well-known to the same characters without difficulty until given away by having differently shaped ears.
In a number of other cases, relatives are able to conceal themselves as strangers, as in A Murder is Announced and Hercule Poirot's Christmas.
Impersonation may be for the specific reason of making the character appear to do something specific (as in After the Funeral, where 'Cora Lansquenet' makes a contentious remark about her brother's death, or the short story 'The Dream', where a man impersonates a millionaire to make him appear suicidal) or to establish an alibi, as in Evil Under the Sun, and the short story 'Four and Twenty Blackbirds'. A variation on this theme is where someone adopts a secondary identity in order to allow their real identity to disappear mysteriously by 'redirecting attention'. This device is used in 'At the Bells and Motley' from The Mysterious Mr Quin, and in modified form in Dead Man's Folly. In Murder on the Orient Express, identities are concealed so they will not seem to hold a grudge against the victim, which they all do have. One is even a celebrity in disguise.
[edit] Unreliable character speaks the truth
A character who is considered unreliable or untrustworthy speaks the truth, but nobody listens to him or her
In A Murder is Announced the silly and forgetful Dora Bunner tells Inspector Craddock what one particular character was doing shortly before the murder took place. But because she is so unreliable, everybody believes she was mistaken until she started to believe the version of the murderer herself. In The Mousetrap, Mrs Boyle points out that one character cannot be who he pretends to be, but nobody pays attention since Mrs Boyle is presented as a rather unpleasant woman who complains about everyone. In Crooked House, Brenda Leonides tells the narrator pretty early in the book that she thinks the character, who later turns out to be the murderer, might not be quite right in the head, but nobody believes her since Brenda herself is the main suspect in the poisoning of her much older and rich husband.
[edit] Time of crime is set forward or backwards
The criminal creates an alibi by making the crime appear to take place at a different time
In several stories, the criminal plays with time, to make it look as though the crime took place when the criminal was elsewhere. In Evil Under the Sun the criminals fake a murder for a time when they both have alibis, then commit it later while the preliminary investigative bustle distracts attention. In Hercule Poirot's Christmas the murder is committed an hour before it appears to have taken place, at a time when the criminal is elsewhere in front of witnesses. In Hickory Dickory Dock, a criminal's accomplice makes a phone call that is ostensibly from the victim, at a time when the criminal is standing in front of Poirot. In The Plymouth Express the criminal disguises herself as the victim at a train station to create the impression that the victim was still alive when, in fact, she had been killed earlier. Playing with time invariably involves devices such as fake phone calls, gunshots, screams, disguises, people pretending to be dead, and other devices that take advantage of an observer's assumptions.
[edit] Twist endings
[edit] The criminal is the one who calls in the detective
In a number of stories, the criminal deliberately gets Poirot involved in the case. Of course it is only at the end that we discover this, and along the way it makes the real murderer less of a suspect to the reader. In Lord Edgware Dies, the murderer asks Poirot to help obtain a divorce, intending that this will help prove that she has no motive. In The A.B.C. Murders, the murderer sends letters to Poirot announcing the crimes beforehand, intending to frame an innocent person for the crime. A variation is Peril at End House, in which the murderer did involve Poirot deliberately, but until the end the reader is led to think her involvement is accidental.
[edit] The murderer appears to be the intended victim
In Peril at End House, a young woman (Nick Buckley) appears to be the target for a number of murder attempts. In fact she has arranged these in order to mask her own murder (of a distant cousin, Maggie) as another botched murder attempt that has miscarried.
The same device for masking a real murder was used in A Murder is Announced (twice) and The Mirror Crack'd. Staged unsuccessful murder attempts appear in After the Funeral, Crooked House and Third Girl.
[edit] The murderer appears to be an actual victim
In And Then There Were None, multiple victims are killed by one of a diminishing number of suspects. At the end it appears that the murderer must be one of the two survivors, but in fact the murderer has earlier conspired to stage his own death, leaving him alive to complete his programme of executions before committing suicide.
[edit] The murderer is the hero or heroine of the story
In Death in the Clouds, the main male character, who has been the 'love interest' for the heroine, is revealed to be the killer. To some extent, the same is true of Three Act Tragedy, although it can be argued that the appearance of an alternative love interest in both novels is a giveaway in this respect. However, the same plot line (including back-up love interest) is a red herring in The Man in the Brown Suit.
[edit] The murder has been committed by all of the suspects
In Murder on the Orient Express, Poirot reveals that all (but one) of the suspects committed the murder as part of an elaborate conspiracy.
[edit] The murderer is the narrator
In The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the murder has been committed by the narrator, Dr. Sheppard, who never lies but omits mention of any of the actions that would demonstrate his guilt. The same thing happened in Endless Night.
[edit] The murderer is a policeman
In Hercule Poirot's Christmas the murder has been committed by the investigating policeman, who also happens to be the illegitimate son of the victim. In the short story "The Man in the Mist", the investigating policeman, who is also the victim's husband of twenty years ago, commits the murder.
[edit] The murderer is the detective
In Curtain: Poirot's Last Case the final murder is committed by Poirot.
[edit] The murderer is a child
In Crooked House the murderer is a twelve year-old girl whose appealing nature conceals a psychopathic streak.
[edit] The conspirators in a murder appear to hate one another
In Death on the Nile the initial suspect, Jacqueline de Bellefort, has actually shot the victim’s husband, Simon Doyle, before the murder. The solution to the mystery reveals that they are working together, and shooting has been carefully staged. Similarly, the conspirator cousins in The Mysterious Affair at Styles only pretend to hate one another. A husband and wife, despite appearances that their marriage is breaking down, team up to commit the murder in Evil Under the Sun. The same device underpins Endless Night.
This twist was well enough known for Christie to use it as a red herring in Hercule Poirot's Christmas.
[edit] The murders are unconnected
While it is a common red herring to include unrelated minor crimes like robberies in the stories, in Cat Among the Pigeons two murders actually have no connection at all except for place and method. The second murderer just happened to mimic the first murder in execution.
[edit] The murder takes place after the corpse is discovered
In Evil Under the Sun, the body of the victim is apparently discovered by two characters, one of whom goes to fetch the police. The murderer, however, has only “discovered” the body of his accomplice, and is left free to murder the real victim with a seemingly perfect alibi established. In Cards on the Table, the murderer actually discovers the victim sleeping, but he convinces the victim's maid that the victim is dead as he is a doctor and sends her to call the police and murders the victim afterwards.
[edit] The murderer is … exactly who it appears to be
In The Hollow, Poirot arrives at the scene of a murder in time to see a woman with a gun in her hand standing over the body of her husband, who is bleeding to death from a fresh bullet wound. It turns out at the end of the novel that she did in fact shoot him, but that this fact has subsequently been obfuscated by the other witnesses. In Lord Edgware Dies, the murderer announces how she would kill the victim, and when doing it announces herself at the door of the victim's house perfectly truthfully, but has arranged apparent alibis to make it seem that she was framed. In The Murder at the Vicarage, the murderers each confess, but are cleared and only much later proved to be in fact guilty.
A variation on this is in Ordeal by Innocence, where the man found guilty for the crime, whose subsequently-revealed alibi prompts a reopening of the case, turns out to have been the brains behind the murderer after all.
[edit] The murder was a "dress rehearsal"
In Three Act Tragedy, Sir Charles Cartwright murders The Reverend Stephen Babbington as a dress rehearsal for his later murder of Sir Bartholemew Strange. Hercule Poirot remarks that he has never seen such a motive before, but that it could be "wholly natural" given the right temperament - that of an actor such as Sir Charles, for example.
[edit] There was no murder
In some stories, such as Murder In The Mews, a suicide or accident proves to be exactly that, but someone comes along later and rearranges the scene in order to incriminate someone else. In a few stories, such as The Labours of Hercules, someone who is thinking about committing murder is prevented from going any further.
