Analysis of a Major Work

And Then There Were None is demonstrating the ultimate justice. Wargrave kills everyone on Indian Island because he did what the legal system could not do. Everyone got away with some type of crime even if they were accidents. Wargrave believes that these people deserve a consequence rather than walking away because the crime was an accident. He found the crimes from being a judge, and he took the matters into his own hands. Wargrave murders multiple people and takes some pleasure from what he has accomplished. He punishes himself for his own crime by hanging himself even though he would have died due to sickness anyway, so he never entirely suffers the consequences of his actions. The characters were carefully chosen and killed in a particular order based on their personality. When there were only two people left alive, Lombard and Claythorne, Claythorne automatically killed Lombard assuming that there was no possiblity that it could be someone else. Wargrave knew that she would do that, and he knew that she would fulfill the last line of the poem by hanging herself. Everything went as he planned. Christie was very clever in creating her characters for this novel. She included the murderer in the legal system to a former soldier to a governess. They all had one thing in common: they each held with them a deep dark secret and they all had a lot of guilt on their conscience. In the very end, guilt is the cause of the last person's death.

Works Cited

And Then There Were None. Sparknotes, 2010. Web. 5 May 2010. .

Christie's Major Works

Agatha Christie’s characters are usually “well-to-do-people”. Often the comfortable lifestyles of her characters are faced with financial problems, a possible cause for the murder. The character that appears innocent and least likely to commit murder is frequently the murderer in her novels. Society is not blamed for the crimes committed within the books.
Hercule Poirot is one of Christie’s most famous detectives. He is the base of many of her novels. He loves the luxurious life and is a very routine type of individual. He has a very big ego and believes that everyone knows his name. He is known to be impatient, opinionated, and very direct towards others. When Poirot solves his crimes, he likes to sit back quietly and think, but he is not afraid to snoop around into other people’s business.
Jane Marple is another one of Christie’s detectives. She uses people that she knows from a village to network her way into figuring out who the murderer is. She is of older age and the methods she uses only work for a woman like her. She draws parallels of village and city life. If Christie created Marple younger than she probably would not have been able to solve the crimes that she did.
Hercule and Marple’s character is the base of Christie’s novel. Most of Christie’s major works include one of these two characters. The plot is created around them. The crimes they solve are built so that they can solve them. The type of individuals and crime solvers they are is the base of every novel that they are in.

Works Cited
Agatha Christie. 2010. Web. 1 May 2010. .
Hercule Poirot Central. Ed. J.D. Hobbs. 2000. Web. 1 May 2010. .

Major Themes and Influences

Agatha Christie was mainly known for her mystery novels. Christie stayed at home for school. She was a very shy child and created imaginary friends and creatures to keep her occupied. Her imagination and creativity helped her with her profession. She was born into the era of Victorian England of 1890; this was a time when servants existed in a number of families, including Christie’s. A number of her novels included a country setting, and servants often played a significant part in her plots. Christie worked as a nurse in World War I where she learned the effects of drugs and poisons. She input what she learned into the novels that she wrote. The horrors she saw throughout the war had a great effect on the types of books she wrote. The death and tragedy in her novels were probably based on what she witnessed in real life. The crime novels she grew up with had an impact on her writing as well. The detectives she created were the “Sherlock Holmes type”. Christie traveled quite often throughout her life. She learned to speak French fluently and this helped her create a Belgian, French speaking detective named Hercule Poirot.
Major themes in Christie’s novels were justice. Since she writes mystery novels, the detectives do try to solve the crime and make sure the killer pays their debt. The effects of guilt on one’s conscience are another theme. Christie tests the limits of many of her characters to see how far they will go to save a secret or their life. A lot of Christie’s novels involve a class system. In And Then There Were None, as more and more people die the social hierarchies dictate their behavior. They rule out certain people to be the killer because of their social status; this proves to be a big mistake in the end.

Works Cited
Cook, Cathy. The Christie Mystery. Pension Annuity. Web. 24 Apr. 2010. .Themes, Motifs, and Symbols. Sparknotes, 2010. Web. 24 Apr. 2010. .

Christie's Career

Agatha Christie is the one of the most successful authors of all time. She mainly wrote crime novels, short stories, and plays. She is the most popular mystery writer of all time. She also wrote a few romances but under the name Mary Westmacott. Christie’s career spanned over 50 years; she wrote a total of 80 detective novels in which she was most remembered for. Many of her works have been translated into films. Over two billion copies of her books have been sold and her works have been translated into more than 100 languages, more than the famous William Shakespeare. She wrote the longest running play in the world: The Mousetrap, which she initially wrote for Queen Mary. She has won numerous awards throughout her lifetime including the Mystery Writers of America’s Grand Master Award in 1995 and the order of Dame Commander of the British Empire in 1971. Her success continues even after her death; her novels are still selling, the most popular in the United States is And Then There Were None.


Works Cited
“Agatha Christie”. 2010. Web. 17 April 2010. http://www.nndb.com/people/583/000026505/.
www.images.search.yahoo.com

Christie Biography

Christie became the best selling mystery author of all time. She also wrote the longest running play in modern theater called The Mousetrap. Before changing her name, Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was born in 1890 in Torquary, England. Her father was an outgoing American and she resembled her mother who was quite shy. She also grew up with two older siblings. Miller’s father died when she was eleven. She grew closer to her mother and they traveled together when her mom became restless.
In 1912, Miller met her future husband, Archie Christie. He was an aviator and they married in 1914 by a special license after he returned to the war in France on Boxing Day. Christie had a beautiful baby girl in 1919. Unfortunately, in the year 1926 both her mother passed away and Archie Christie left her for another woman.
Christie’s writing career really began when her sister challenged her to write a novel. Although it took her many years, because her publisher had suggested a final alternative chapter, she finally completed The Mysterious Affair at Styles. By 1930, she visited Baghdad. During her trip, she was informed that her daughter was seriously ill. A man named Max Mallowan who she met in Baghdad assisted her in her journey home. He proposed to her soon after they arrived in England, and she happily accepted. She accompanied him on his archeological trips where she continued to write. She died peacefully in 1976.


Works Cited
“The Queen of Crime.” Agatha Christie. 2009. Web. 8 April 2010. http://www.agathachristie.com/about-christie/the-queen-of-crime/biography/

“Agatha Christie from Encyclopedia of World Biography.” 2005. Web. 8 April 2010. http://www.bookrags.com/biography/agatha-christie/#bro_copy.

Why Agatha Christie?

I chose Agatha Christie for my blog. She wrote And Then There Were None and I absolutely loved that novel. I could not put it down. It allowed my imagination to run wild, and although it scared me to death I continued to read it. It also had a "wow" factor; when the killer was revealed, it was very unexpected. During her time, nothing like this could ever be written, much less from a woman. I am curious to see how she came up with all the ideas for her novels, especially the murder mysteries. I am also interested in the reaction of society when she wrote those books and what other types of novels did she write. Is there a similarity between all of her major works? What influenced her to write?