Erva Bulut 05/05/2020

FLE152 (01)
AGATHA CHRISTIE’S ‘’AND THEN THERE WERE NONE’’ NOVEL EVALUATION

Agatha Christie is the best-selling crime writer who is also known as ''Queen of
Crime'' or ''Queen of Mystery''. She is famous for her quite successful novels and her unique
ability to write about crime and mystery. Her success in making the reader wonder and try to
guess who the murderer is throughout the book is what makes her so special. It is tough to
guess the murderer because she aimed to conceal it as much as possible, which is quite
possible for her.

Agatha Christie is generally known for her detective characters, Hercule Poirot and
Miss Marple. Poirot and Marple are highly peculiar to Agatha Christie because both are well-
written and genius detectives of whom a successful crime novel is in need. She used these
detectives in the majority of her novels; however, she had other detectives as well, whom
she used in the other novels. Nonetheless, her novel ''And Then There Were None'', is an
important and unmatched example of her unique ability to write crime books because this
novel has some main differences from other novels of hers. In fact, Agatha Christie herself
describes her idea about the plot of '' And Then There Were None'' as ''hard'' and
''fascinating'', which is a difference from the other books. It is a novel which is hard to plan
because, in the novel, there are ten people who have been invited to an island that has not
got any connection to the mainland, so that means there are ten people to die, and the
murderer must be one of them. Writing ten homicides without being ''ridiculous'' was her aim,
according to her autobiography. As I mentioned earlier, Agatha Christie is highly brilliant in
concealing the killer, but as to this specific novel, Christie regards it as highly hard. Another
difference is that this book is not one of the Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple stories. In fact,
there is not a detective in the novel until the end of it at all; thus, the murderer is not get
caught, or there is not a happy end. Furthermore, the style the novel handles the subject is
unique because the book considers the problem from various aspects such as racism or
psychology. Thus, the question ''Why does the murderer kill the people?'' is much more
important than the question '' What are the murderer's methods of killing, how does he do
that?''. There are many factors making this novel special, and these factors are also my
reasons to choose ''And Then There Were None'' to evaluate, analyze and comment on.

To begin with, I would want to analyze the main characters of the book so that the
motives and reasons why the murderer killed them can be more precise. The first person that
should be analyzed is the murderer who is Lawrence Wargrave. Wargrave is a judge who is
known as ''hanging judge''. However, in the novel, he is not fulfilling his mission as a judge.
The crimes and the punishments they deserve are determined by himself. In other words, he
regards himself as an authority to punish the people the law cannot touch. He wants to
punish the people who have contributed to the death of an innocent person indirectly, and he
uses a different method. Firstly, he regards the people he has chosen as the criminals
deserve death, and he gathers these on the Soldier Island, which implies that there is
nowhere to escape. In every room of the house on the island, there is a poem telling ten
soldiers' dying stories. In accordance with the poem, Wargrave starts to kill his victims one by
one. However, he follows a psychologically damaging way while doing so because he wants
to make them know that there is no one on the island except for ten of them. Thus, the
victims notice that one of them is responsible for the people's dying or getting lost, which
makes them paranoiac in the long run because there is nowhere to escape, and they need
one another. While punishing them, Wargrave decides that whose guilt is the lightest should
die first 1.

''1There were, I considered, amongst my guests, varying degrees of guilt. Those whose guilt
was the lightest should, I decided, pass out first, and not suffer the prolonged mental strain
and fear that the more cold-blooded offenders were to suffer.'' (p. 183, para. 2)

I think it is highly significant because there is a planned order and he does not think
that everyone is guilty in a way. He tries to do what is needed according to his own justice.
Other than that, there is another common characteristic of these ''criminals''. Wargrave
implies that although these people are guilty, they are respected by the society because they
are doctors, teachers, etc.

At their first night on the island, these criminals are listened to a gramophone record,
and on this record, an unknown voice counts the reasons what makes each of them criminal.
They are all accused of death. After listening to the record, they start either to deny or to
justify themselves by saying that they were doing their duties or the people they killed
deserved dying. At this point, it is possible to see the racist effects in the book. For example,
one of the victims, Philip Lombard defenses himself by saying the native he forced to die
were worth dying because they were natives. He also adds that the natives do not mind
dying as much as white people do. There are other victims agreeing with Lombard as well;
however, one can conclude from the novel that, according to the murderer, this racist action
is one of the worst crimes.

When it comes to other characters in the book, it would make sense to start with the
first victim because it gives us essential background information about the motives he has to
murder. Firstly, his name is Anthony Marston, and his guilt is killing two children by car.
However, according to Wargrave, the main reason why he should be killed is his being born
without morality and being like a spoilt child, so he thinks Marston as dangerous, but
Wargrave thinks his crime as a light one. The second victim is Mrs. Rogers. She is the wife
of the other servant. Her crime is contributing to the death of an old lady by not giving the
medications she needed. They aimed to get her money. Actually, Wargrave does not regard
her crime as light; however, he thinks that Mrs. Rogers was under the impact of her husband,
and her husband forced her to do so. General Macarthur is the third victim to die. The person
Macarthur caused to die is his wife's lover. When he learned that her wife was cheating on
him with her lover, General sent her lover to a battle with the aim of making him die because
Macarthur was sure that when he went into the battle, he would die. Wargrave describes his
dying as ''quite painlessly''. Macarthur is a little bit different from other victims because he
only waits for the death coming. Next, the fourth victim of Wargrave is Mr. Rogers. His crime
is affecting the decisions of her wife. Wargrave thinks that if it were not for Mr. Rogers, Mrs.
Roger would not be an important part of the death of the old lady; thus, he deserves getting
punishment. After the death of Mr. Rogers, Emily Brent's death comes. In her dark past
concealed by innocent manners, there is a death, too. One of the workers she had, there
was a woman named Beatrice who had conceived a child out of wedlock. Because of Brent's
firing her, Beatrice commits suicide. Emily Brent does not think of herself as guilty because,
according to her, a woman conceiving a child out of wedlock should die. I believe that
Wargrave thinks her main guilt as that. We can conclude from all the book that the values
and morality of the ''guests'' are the main factors making someone criminal, according to
Wargrave. Dr. Armstrong is another soldier in the Soldier Island. He is a highly respected,
successful doctor, but there is one mistake of him that brought him to that island. In his dark
past, he was in operation while he was drunk, so his drunkenness resulted in the death of the
patient. People did not consider him as someone who can be that careless, so he was never
regarded as a murderer. One of the characteristics of Wargrave is his selecting widely
respected people because they are the people the law cannot touch thanks to this respect
they have. William Blore is another person and victim of Wargrave on the island. The crime
he has in his past is contributing to sending an innocent man to jail because he has some
advantages. In other words, Blore looks out for himself. From the order Wargrave has, it is
possible to say that the guilt of Blore is heavy, according to Wargrave. However, there are
two remaining victims of Wargrave. Vera Claythorne and Philip Lombard. Philip Lombard is
not directly killed by Wargrave himself. He is shot by Vera Claythorne, but this is a part of
Wargrave's plan. According to the child rhyme and the plan, after getting paranoiac, Vera
would kill Lombard, and this is what she does. Philip Lombard let a native people group die,
and he does not feel sorry about it. We can conclude that Wargrave regards his crime as one
of the worst ones as Lombard does not admit that he killed many native people just because
they are natives. The last victim is Vera Claythorne, and I think she is the second most
important character in the novel after Wargrave. Wargrave thinks that Vera is the worst
criminal on the island because while she is working as a game mistress for a boy named
Cyril, Vera falls in love with his uncle, Hugo. Although Cyril's family is rich, Hugo is not. Thus,
Vera lets Cyril swim too far, which results in his death. Vera does that with the aim of making
Hugo inherit the money. However, there is one thing she does not take into account what
Hugo would think about Cyril's death. Vera still loves him, but Hugo regards her as a
criminal. I believe that Wargrave knows Vera's thought about Hugo and her love for him, so
Wargrave chooses Vera as the most proper victim to commit suicide because she already
has psychological damage due to her love for Hugo. Obviously, the only reason why Vera
comes last is not that. The most important reason is Wargrave's regarding it as the heaviest
crime. In the end, each of them is killed.

Wargrave is a quite interesting character because he himself knows that a

psychologist would understand why he kills people, so while reading, I enjoyed trying to
figure out what happens inside his brain. To conclude, ''And Then There Were None'' is a
quite exciting and unique ''whodunit'' because of the psychological and moral side it has.