Agatha Christie: a look Into Criminal Procedure and Gender
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| Role-Playing and Gossip In every novel featuring Miss Marple, it is probable that she is going to use her uncanny ability to gossip, with a purpose, as her main method of obtaining information. As an active member of her village, Miss Marple is always up to date with the latest information. She even has set hours where the majority of her plans to meet with fellow villagers are put in place, saying that Nine o’clock to nine-thirty was the recognized time for the village to make friendly calls to neighbors. Plans for the day, invitations, and soon, were always issued then (The Body in the Library 562). It is from these teatimes, meetings, or just quick chats with those who live in St. Mary Mead that Miss Marple becomes knowledgeable of all the local gossip and happenings. In The Murder at the Vicarage, Christie writes Marple as the local village gossip who, at first gets a lukewarm depiction from some other females in the village. On one hand, she is a very likeable old woman, but Griselda describes her as the worst cat in the village. And she always knows every single thing that happens – and draws the worst inferences from it (5). The latter part of this statement proves Marple’s distrust of human nature, but the first part of it shows that everybody expects her to be meddling in the business of others. This ends up being a huge advantage to Marple in her crime solving endeavors as She realizes that people expect old women to gossip and snoop it would be noticeable if they did not. People maybe bored by an old lady’s rambling conversation, but they do not suspect her of an ulterior motive (Bargainnier 75). The challenge Miss Marple faces is concealing her true intentions in her interactions with 43 people. If her investigative identity is even the least bit different from how she normally acts, she would never be able to have the conversations she does. In theory, Miss Marple has to become an actress in order to elicit information out of people. One example of this comes from A Caribbean Mystery where Miss Marple has to play into her gender stereotypes and insert herself into the lives of complete strangers. It is said that She had one weapon and one weapon only, and that was conversation. Old ladies were given to a good deal of rambling conversation. People were bored by this, but certainly did not suspect them of ulterior motives (A Caribbean Mystery 172). While it can be debated as to whether or not this is Miss Marple’s only weapon, solving this mystery will take the most masterful acting performance. In one scene, right after the murder has occurred and she decides she is going to investigate, she even says to herself, What a fool I sound (176). She knows how ridiculous she has to act to come off as the old spinster. Especially in A Caribbean Mystery, she fulfills this role exceedingly well. It depicts, Miss Marple, intent on her knitting – or so it seemed – stretch out afoot, then hastily she apologized and As Miss Marple resettled herself, she went on talking in a childish and garrulous manner (176). Again, all of her actions are completely expected from a woman of her age. No one would think twice about a womanlike Miss Marple, sitting by herself knitting. In The Body in the Library, gossiping with the people in her town gives Miss Marple an insight that the police do not have. Upon arriving at the scene of the crime at Gossington Hall, the inspectors assigned to the case have no idea whereto start. Miss Marple, however, arrives with intel from a neighbor about a young man in the village, Basil Blake. He had just had a party and Marple recounts of it, Shouting and singing – the most terrible noise – everyone very drunk, I’m afraid – and the mess and the broken glass next morning simply unbelievable – so old Mrs. 44 Berry told me – and a young woman asleep in the bath with practically nothing on (566). While Basil Blake does not end up being the culprit, the initial investigation of him as the prime suspect leads Miss Marple to uncover that the real criminals intended to frame Blake for at least one of the murders. Miss Marple nearly always has a place to start when she begins investigating a murder because of the gossip she hears from others. Download 0.5 Mb. Share with your friends:
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