| Arthur Hastings | |
|---|---|
Hugh Fraser as Hastings |
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| First appearance | The Mysterious Affair at Styles |
| Last appearance | Curtain |
| Created by | Agatha Christie |
| Portrayed by | Hugh Fraser |
| Information | |
| Occupation | Army Captain |
| Nationality | British |
Captain Arthur Hastings, OBE, is a fictional character, the amateur sleuthing partner and best friend of Agatha Christie's Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot. He is first introduced in her novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles and appears in many subsequent Poirot stories and novels, generally as the narrator.
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Hastings is today strongly associated with Poirot, partly because many of the early TV episodes "Agatha Christie's Poirot" were adaptations of the short stories, in most of which he appeared, or were stories into which he had been introduced in the course of adaptation (e.g. Murder in the Mews). In Christie's original writings, however, Hastings is far less prominent. He is not a character in either of the two best-known Poirot novels - Death on the Nile and Murder on the Orient Express - and of the fifteen Poirot novels published between 1920 and 1937, he appears in fewer than half. Moreover, when Christie expanded The Submarine Plans (1923) as The Incredible Theft (1937), she removed Hastings.
Hastings appears to have been introduced by Christie in accordance with the model of Sherlock Holmes's associate, Doctor Watson, to whom he bears a marked resemblance. Both narrate in the first person, both are slow to see the significance of clues, and both therefore stand as a form of surrogate for the reader. There are even similarities of role: Hastings is Poirot's only close friend, and the two share a flat briefly when Poirot sets up his detective agency. The presence of Chief Inspector Japp, a close "literary descendant" of Holmes's Inspector Lestrade, fleshed out Christie's adoption of the Holmes paradigm.
Christie's experiments with first-person narration, especially in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, saw her attempt to expand the formal resources of the detective novel. In Ten Little Niggers (1939), her most successful novel, and one in which none of her detectives appear, her third-person narrative moves fluidly between the perspectives of all of her characters. This need to see different events from alternative perspectives (especially from the perspectives of her suspects) meant that she increasingly favoured third-person narration throughout her career.
In Sad Cypress, for example, the character of a woman on trial is made to think like a murderess when the narrative is written from her perspective: a significant red herring that is only possible because of the method of narration.
Furthermore, Poirot's method changes in the novels. In the earlier phase of his career, Hastings is valued for his imaginative approach to cases, inevitably giving rise to fanciful hypotheses that Poirot can gently mock. This characterisation of Hastings is made by Poirot himself in "The Mystery of the Spanish Chest" (1932): "How my dear friend, Hastings, would have enjoyed this! What romantic flights of imagination he would have had. What ineptitudes he would have uttered! Ah ce cher Hastings, at this moment, today, I miss him ..."
Later in her career, Christie's apparatus is less fanciful, and the opportunity for wild speculation much diminished. When the need for a sidekick arises in the later novels and stories it is either:
Although Hastings remains the most popular of Poirot's sidekicks, his appearance in only eight of the thirty-three Poirot novels indicates that he no longer served Christie's literary purpose.
Similarly to his friend Poirot, Hastings' life and background before 1916 are pure estimation though the reader is able to pinpoint Hastings' approximate birth year as 1886 as he mentions that John Cavendish was 'a good fifteen years [his] senior' though hardly looking 'his forty-five years' in the first chapter of The Mysterious Affair at Styles. This thus makes Hastings thirty years old at the start of the novel. It is also mentioned later on that he was employed at Lloyd's prior to the war.
Hastings meets Poirot in Belgium several years before their meeting on 16 July 1916, at Styles Court, Essex, which is their first encounter in literature.[1] The two remain friends right up to Poirot's death, although there is little evidence regarding their possible meetings between 1937 and 1975, but we know that Hastings at least saw Poirot a year before the latter's death. Hastings, while being no great detective himself, serves Poirot in many ways. A former British Army officer in World War I, he is extremely brave and often used by Poirot for physical duties such as catching and subduing a criminal. Poirot likes to tease Hastings about being dim-witted at times, but he clearly enjoys the Captain's company. In two of the books in which he appears — The Mysterious Affair at Styles and The ABC Murders — Hastings plays a prominent role in the resolution of the mystery, with a casual observation he makes at one point in the novel leading Poirot to realise the guilty party: By mentioning that Poirot had to straighten some spill holders and ornaments in "Styles," he prompts Poirot to realise that someone had moved them, thus allowing Poirot to discover a crucial piece of evidence, and when he suggests that an incorrectly addressed letter revealing the latest crime in The ABC Murders was addressed that way on purpose, Poirot realises that the letter had indeed been wrongly addressed deliberately so that it would not be received until after the murderer had committed his crime, revealing that the murderer had attached greater importance to that particular murder, and wanted to be certain that it was committed.
Hastings represents the traditional English gentleman — not too bright but absolutely scrupulous, a throwback to the Victorian-era gentleman who is always concerned about "fair play." Unlike Poirot, who is not above lying, surreptitiously reading other people's letters, eavesdropping, etc., in his quest to solve a case, Hastings is absolutely horrified by such things and usually refuses to do these things even when asked to do so by Poirot. Hastings' physical appearance is rarely described in the novels because he is often the narrator. However, it is mentioned in various novels that he, like Poirot, has a moustache which occasionally is a target of the detective's criticism: 'And your moustache. If you must have a moustache, let it be a real moustache, a thing of beauty such as mine.'[2]
He is chivalrous as well, possessing a pronounced weakness for pretty women with auburn hair (a fact that gets him and Poirot into trouble more than once). Despite his preference for auburn hair, and his Victorian ideas about not marrying outside one's class, he eventually falls in love with a dark-haired music-hall actress, singer, and acrobat, Dulcie Duveen. They meet in the story Murder on the Links, the second full-length Poirot novel. Poirot plays a rather significant part in uniting the couple. Hastings then acquires a ranch in Argentina and settles down to a life as a ranchholder.
Hastings's appearances in Poirot's later novels are restricted to a few cases in which he participates on his periodic returns to England from Argentina; Poirot comments in The ABC Murders that he enjoys Hastings's visits because he always has his most interesting cases when Hastings is with him. In the course of The Big Four, Dulcie's life is threatened by members of an international conspiracy, and Hastings is forced to risk Poirot's life in return for her promised safety. In other respects there is very little personal detail regarding him in these novels, until Curtain: Poirot's Last Case, which is presumed to take place a great many years later; with his wife now dead, Hastings rejoins Poirot at Styles to help Poirot tackle one last case, Poirot dying of a heart attack at the conclusion but leaving Hastings a confession explaining his role in events.
In Curtain, we learn that he and 'Cinders' or 'Cinderella' as he calls Dulcie, have four children: two sons and two daughters. One son joins the Royal Navy, while the other one and his wife manage the ranch after Dulcie's death. His daughter Grace is married to a British officer stationed in India, and his youngest child, Judith, who is also his favourite — albeit while also being the one he understands least — appears as a character in Curtain. Judith marries Dr. John Franklin, a medical researcher, and moves to Africa with him. It is possible that Hastings himself also takes a second wife: Elizabeth Litchfield, the younger sister of a woman who was manipulated into killing her abusive father by the killer that Poirot was tracking. Poirot certainly suggests that he should become involved with Elizabeth in the Postscript to Curtain, noting that Elizabeth must be reassured that she is not tainted by her sister's actions and that Hastings is still not unattractive to women, but there is no further evidence either way.
Hastings has been portrayed on film and television by several actors, including Robert Morley in The Alphabet Murders (1965); Jonathan Cecil in three TV films - Thirteen at Dinner (1985), Dead Man's Folly (1986), and Murder in Three Acts (1986); and most notably, Hugh Fraser, who has portrayed Hastings alongside David Suchet's Poirot in 41 of the 49 episodes of Agatha Christie's Poirot broadcast up until 2003. He is also a main character in the anime Agatha Christie's Great Detectives Poirot and Marple.
Hastings narrates the majority of the short stories featuring Poirot, but appears in only eight of the novels, all of which were written before 1940 (except Curtain: Poirot's Last Case). These are as follows:
Hastings is also present in both the play and novelisation of Christie's Black Coffee alongside Poirot.
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