Agatha Christie – Creative Reading

I want to question the idea of justice in Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. There are arguments aplenty on if U. N. Owen is justified or even interested in justice when they (singular) murder ten people, each of whom is accused of getting away with killing someone. A closer look at how Owen accomplishes their idea of justice, and the people who are punished under it, reveals much more ambiguity. First, we must consider the “criminals” killed. One character, Emily Brent, is accused of causing a teenage girl’s suicide—even though Brent didn’t cause the suicide or tell the girl to kill herself. Two other characters are never even confirmed guilty. They also happen to be, some say, the most minor: Thomas and Ethel Rogers, the butler and cook. But a New Critical lens reveals the Rogerses’ so-called underdevelopment makes them ripe for a range of interpretations, and their opaqueness is not classist ignorance on Christie’s part, but an unsolved mystery within a mystery. Because we know so little about them and we never hear their thoughts, we never know if they’re guilty or innocent. In fact, there’s no conclusive evidence they committed murder. This ambiguity severely disrupts U. N. Owen’s master plan.

Second, we must ask if Owen can enforce justice alone. Under the English system, justice was jointly administered by the police, jury, judge, and executioner. While Owen finds this unable to bring every killer to justice, Marti’s and Saks’s meta-analysis shows the importance of having many people involved in court proceedings. When only one person is police, judge, jury, and executioner, it inherently contaminates the system’s integrity.

Considering the potential innocence of the “guilty,” and the limitations of the one-person judgment, it becomes apparent that U. N. Owen’s plan for “justice” is poorly thought out at best. At worst, it’s not justice at all.

Potential Sources

Saks, Michael J., and Mollie Weighner Marti. “A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Jury Size.” Law and Human Behavior, vol. 21, no. 5, 1997, pp. 451–467. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1394327.

Vurmay, M. Ayça. “Detection or Endless Deferral/Absence in Detective Fiction: Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.” DCTF Dergisi, 57.2, 2017, pp. 1127-1150.

[There is a spoiler for And Then There Were None in this pitch. No, I don’t reveal the killer’s identity. If you haven’t read it, you should!]

A person doesn’t need an English degree to see the exploration of the universal themes of justice and punishment in Agatha Christie’s 1939 novel And Then There Were None. Interestingly, few scholarly articles exist on the novel. There are arguments aplenty on if U. N. Owen is justified or even interested in justice when s/he murders ten people, each of whom is accused of getting away with murder. But nearly all these readers’ opinions are based on the assumption that all ten people are guilty of murder, which drains the book of some ambiguity. In fact, only eight characters are confirmed guilty through thoughts, flashbacks, or confessions. The two that aren’t also happen to be, some say, the most minor, whose thoughts are never revealed: Thomas and Ethel Rogers, the butler and cook. Christie has been criticized for her underdeveloped domestic worker characters such as these two. But a New Critical lens reveals the paradox that the most “minor” characters are actually the most important. The Rogerses’ so-called underdevelopment makes them ripe for a range of interpretations, and their opaqueness is not classist ignorance on Christie’s part, but an unsolved mystery within a (solved) mystery. Because we know so little about them and we never hear their thoughts, we never know if they’re guilty or innocent. In fact, unlike every other character, there’s no conclusive evidence they committed the murder they’re accused of. This adds a dose of ambiguity that severely disrupts, if not completely overthrows, U. N. Owen’s master plan for “justice.”

Potential Source:

Vurmay, M. Ayça. “Detection or Endless Deferral/Absence in Detective Fiction: Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.” DCTF Dergisi, 57.2, 2017, pp. 1127-1150.