Agatha Christie: a look Into Criminal Procedure and Gender
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| Behind the Pen In 1916, Agatha Christie began writing her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920). During this time, fiction writing was one of the rare ways that educated women could earn a living, and by the early twentieth century detective fiction was already a lucrative genre Gills 32). With the detective fiction genre blossoming, this left the door wide open for Christie to flourish. At the time, Christie had recently gone through a career change. Beginning in 1913, Christie had worked as a nurse. Nursing classes were popular in 1913, but with World War I beginning in 1914, the classes became practical. Nursing was idealized because of the belief that young women would be tending to the injured men and soothing them (Christie 222). However, around 1916, Christie had switched to working in a dispensary, which inspired the source of 15 death in her first novel because she was constantly working with pharmaceuticals. She remarks, Since I was surrounded by poisons, perhaps it was natural that death by poisoning should be the method I selected. I settled on one fact which seemed tome to have possibilities. I toyed with the idea, liked it, and finally accepted it (254). She writes many of the characters in The Mysterious Affairs at Styles to have occupations that give them knowledge of poisons. However, she created these characters as red herrings to throw readers off the scent of the real criminal (Gill 35). Christie believed in having multiple suspects with potential motive for murder, but did not ever want to write a novel where she was felt the murder and motive were unprecedented. In doing this, Christie showed that she did not want to create a very unusual kind of murder fora very unusual reason,” as that did not appeal to her (255). Instead, she argues, The whole point of a good detective story was that it must be somebody obvious but at the same time, for some reason, you would then find that is was not obvious, that he could have possibly done it. Though really of course, he had done it (255). The conclusion of Christie’s novels are arguably the best part because she is able to consistently trick readers throughout the narrative and then layout a perfectly obvious explanation that could have never been guessed. Anyone who has read an Agatha Christie novel will agree that the sentiment Christie expresses regarding what makes a good detective story is the exact feeling one has after the conclusion of anyone of her novels. The sensation of, Of course it was them How could I have missed that while simultaneously feeling, There is absolutely noway I could have seen that coming is how the majority of people will feel. This maybe the best part of reading a Christie mystery. She fulfills the necessary requirement of giving her readers sufficient evidence to solve the mystery, but in the most discreet way. |