Agatha Christie The Murder of Roger Akroyd
Agatha Christie 1890-1976 The world s best selling author 66 detective novels, including And Then There Were None and Murder on the Orient Express 14 short story collections The world s longest running play, The Mousetrap
Christie s Life Born into a wealthy family in southwest England Home-schooled until 12 Went to Miss Guyer's Girls School, which she hated At 15 went to finishing schools in Paris Never attended college Disappeared for 11 days in 1926 when her husband left her for another woman
The Murder of Roger Akroyd Published 1926; generally considered her masterpiece Voted the greatest crime novel ever by the Crime Writers Association Caroline Sheppard is a precursor to Miss Marple
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is the supreme, the ultimate detective novel. It rests upon the most elegant of all twists. This twist is not merely a function of plot: it puts the whole concept of detective fiction on an armature and sculpts it into a dazzling new shape. And only she could have pulled it off so completely. Only she had the requisite control, the willingness to absent herself from the authorial scene and let her plot shine clear. Laura Thompson, Christie s biographer
Critical Reactions Edmund Wilson: Who cares who killed Roger Akroyd? Pierre Bayard argues for a different solution Caroline as the murderer!
Todorov s Two Narratives
Hercule Poirot
Detective Fiction The author has to hide certain things in plain sight S.S. Van Dine (Willard Huntington Wright: The truth of the problem must at all times be apparent provided the reader is shrewd enough to see it. By this I mean that if the reader, after learning the explanation for the crime, should reread the book, he would see that the solution had, in a sense, been staring him in the face that all the clues really pointed to the culprit and that, if he had been as clever as the detective, he could have solved the mystery himself without going on to the final chapter.
Detective Fiction Todorov: Two Narratives Surface level: words, actions Hidden level: motives revealed by what the characters are hiding Dr. Sheppard: hides his role in his journal Poirot himself is hiding quite a lot!
Philosophical Themes
Philosophical Themes Truth Knowledge Reason Progress
Truth The truth, however ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to the seeker after it. Tell me the truth the whole truth. There was silence. Will no one speak? The truth is what we need now.
Realism There is an absolute, mind-independent truth about who committed the murder Guilt is in the eye of the beholder NOT!
Perspectives Dr. Sheppard: Every new development that arises is like the shake you give to a kaleidoscope the thing changes entirely in aspect. Dr. Sheppard: Of facts, I keep nothing to myself. But to everyone his own interpretation of them. All detective fiction depends on the possibility of differing interpretations
Knowledge I tell you, I mean to know. And I shall know in spite of you all. Mon ami, I do not think, I know. Me, I know everything. You call it guessing. I call it knowing, my friend.
Reason I admit nothing that is not proved! Use your little grey cells, he said. There is always a reason behind my actions.
Intuition But it is all wrong that Caroline should arrive at the truth simply by a kind of inspired guesswork. I believe, James, that in your heart of hearts, you think very much as I do. You don t believe in impressions?
Intuition Women observe subconsciously a thousand little details, without knowing that they are doing so. Their subconscious mind adds these little things together and they call the result intuition.
Intuition You can t know, I snapped. I didn t know myself until I got there, and haven t mentioned it to a soul yet. If that girl Annie knows, she must be a clairvoyant.
Testimony It wasn t Annie who told me. It was the milkman. He had it from the Ferrarses cook. always bearing in mind that the person who speaks may be lying. You know that it is so but how am I to know?
Norms of Assertion Knowledge? Belief? Justification? Caroline has constantly asserted, without the least foundation for the assertion, that his wife poisoned him.
Dishonesty, Secrecy Everyone has something to hide. Each one of you has something to hide. I discover all the little secrets. It is my business.
Cost of the Truth do you never reflect that you might do a lot of harm with this habit of yours of repeating everything indiscriminately? People ought to know things. I consider it my duty to tell them.
Leadership NB: Dr. Sheppard!
Weakness of Will You are weak, James. strain of weakness p. 201
Weakness and Moral Luck Poirot, totally unlike his usual manner : Let us take a man a very ordinary man. A man with no idea of murder in his heart. There is in him somewhere a strain of weakness deep down. It has so far never been called into play. Perhaps it never will be and if so he will go to his grave honored and respected by everyone.
Weakness and Moral Luck But let us suppose that something occurs. He is in difficulties or perhaps not that even. He may stumble by accident on a secret a secret involving life or death to someone. And his first impulse will be to speak out to do his duty as an honest citizen. And then the strain of weakness tells.
Social Context Education Wealth Social class Gender Pastoral setting Poirot as foreigner
Unreliable Narrator Note contrast with Dr. Watson! The first postmodern novel? Decentering Descartes: I think, I am Hume, Buddhism: no self You don t have direct knowledge of anything, even of yourself But for some reason, obscure to myself, I continued to urge him.
Gricean Maxims H. P. Grice: Cooperative Principle Quantity: Be informative, but not too informative Quality: Try to say something true don t say something false; don t say something you don t have evidence for Relation: Be relevant Manner: Be perspicuous
Gricean Maxims H. P. Grice: Cooperative Principle Quantity: Is the Dr. informative? Quality: Does the Dr. say things that are true Does he say something false? Does he say something he doesn t have evidence for? Relation: Is he relevant? Manner: Is he perspicuous?
Logical Empiricism All our concepts come from experience All our knowledge comes from experience Everything complex is constructed logically from simples relating immediately to experience
Verification Criterion of demarcation Criterion of meaningfulness A sentence has empirical content if and only if it is verifiable
Verification Criterion of demarcation Criterion of meaningfulness A sentence has empirical content if and only if it is verifiable Problems: Addition: A => (A v B) Universals
Falsification A sentence has empirical content if and only if it is falsifiable Popper argued that Marxism and Freudianism failed this
Falsification A sentence has empirical content if and only if it is falsifiable Popper argued that Marxism and Freudianism failed this Problems: Conjunctions: A & B Existentials
Confirmation A sentence has empirical content if and only if it is confirmable or disconfirmable And all its components also have empirical content?
Ravens Paradox All ravens are black All nonblack things are nonravens These are logically equivalent To confirm the first, we look at ravens To confirm the second, we look at things that aren t black