Agatha Christie A Study on Gender and Racial Roles Essay Example For Students

Agatha Christie: A Study on Gender and Racial Roles Essay Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie, DBE was an English crime writer of novels, short stories, and plays. She also wrote six romances under the name Mary Westmacott, but she is best remembered for the 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections she wrote under her own name, most of which revolve around the investigations of such characters as Hercule Poirot, Miss Jane Marple and Tommy and Tuppence. She also wrote the worlds longest-running play, The Mousetrap. Born to a wealthy upper-middle-class family in Torquay, Devon, Christie served in a hospital during the First World War, before marrying and starting a family in London. Although initially unsuccessful at getting her work published, in 1920, The Bodley Head press published her novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles, featuring the character of Poirot. This launched her literary career. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Christie is the best-selling novelist of all time. Her novels have sold roughly 4 billion copies, and her estate claims that her works rank third, after those of William Shakespeare and the Bible, as the worlds most-widely published books. According to Index Translationum, Christie is the most-translated individual author, nd her books have been translated into at least 103 languages. And Then There Were None is Christies best-selling novel with 100 million sales to date, making it the worlds best-selling mystery ever, and one of the best-selling books of all time. In 1971, she was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace. Christies stage play The Mousetrap holds the record for the longest initial run: it opened at the Ambassadors Theatre in London on 25 November 1952 and as of 2012 is still running after more than 25,000 performances. In 1955, Christie was the first recipient of the Mystery Writers of Americas highest honour, the Grand Master Award, and in the same year Witness for the Prosecution was given an Edgar Award by the MWA for Best Play. Many of her books and short stories have been filmed, and many have been adapted for television, radio, video games and comics. Life and career Childhood: 1890-1910 Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie was born on 15 September 1890 into a wealthy upper middle-class family in Ashfield, Torquay, Devon in South West England. Christies mother, Clara Boehmer was an Englishwoman who had been born in Belfast, modern-day Northern Ireland, in 1854 to Captain Frederick Boehmer and Mary Ann West; the couples only daughter, she had four brothers, one of whom died young. Captain Boehmer was killed in a riding accident while stationed on Jersey in April 1863, leaving Mary Ann to raise her children alone on a meagre income. Under financial strain, she sent Clara to live with her aunt Margaret Miller n? ©e West, who had married a wealthy American Nathaniel Frary Miller in 1863 and lived in Prinsted, West Sussex. Clara stayed with Margaret, and there she would meet her future husband, an American stockbroker named Frederick Alvah Miller, who was the son of Nathaniel. Frederick was a member of the small and wealthy American upper class, and had been sent to Europe to gain an education in Switzerland. Considered relationship with Clara, and they were married in April 1878. Their first child, Margaret Madge Frary Miller was born in Torquay, where the couple were renting lodgings, while their second, Louis Monty Montant was born in the U. S. state of New York, where Frederick was on a business trip. Clara soon purchased a villa in Torquay, named Ashfield, in which to raise her family, and it was here that her third and final child, Agatha, was born. Christie would describe her childhood as very happy, and was surrounded by a series of strong and independent women from an early age. Her time was spent alternating between her Devonshire home, her step grandmother/aunts house in Ealing, West London and parts of Southern Europe, where her family would holiday during the winter. Nominally Christian, she was also raised in a household with various esoteric beliefs, and like her siblings believed that their mother Clara was a psychic with the ability of second sight. Her mother insisted that she receive a home education, and so her parents were responsible for teaching er to read and write, and to be able to perform basic arithmetic, a subject that she particularly enjoyed. They also taught her about music, and she learned to play both the piano and the mandolin. A voracious reader from an early age, among her earliest memories were those of reading the childrens books written by Mrs Molesworth, including The Adventures of Herr Baby, Christmas Tree Land and The Magic Nuts . She also read the work of Edith Nesbit, including The Story of the Treasure Seekers, The Phoenix and the Carpet and The Railway Children . When a little older she moved on to reading the surreal verse of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll. Much of her childhood was spent largely alone and separate from other children, although she spent much time with her pets, whom she adored. Eventually making friends with a group of other girls in Torquay, she noted that one of the highlights of my existence was her appearance with them in a youth production of Gilbert and Sullivans The Yeomen of the Guard, in which she played the hero, Colonel Fairfax. This was to be her last operatic role, for as she later wrote, an experience that you really enjoyed should never be repeated. Her father was often ill, suffering from a series of heart attacks, and in November 1901 he died, aged 55. His death left the family devastated, and in an uncertain economic situation. Clara and Agatha continued to live together in their Torquay home; Madge had moved to the nearby Cheadle Hall with her new husband and Monty had Joined the army and been sent to South Africa to fght in the Boer War. Agatha would later claim that her fathers death, occurring whe n she was 11 years old, marked the end of her childhood for her. In 1902, Agatha would be sent to receive a formal education at Miss Guyers Girls School in Torquay, but found it difficult to adjust to the disciplined atmosphere. In 1905 she was then sent to the city of Paris, France, where she was educated in three pensions Mademoiselle Cabernets, Les Marroniers and then Miss Drydens the latter of which served primarily as a finishing school. Early literary attempts and the First World War: 1910-1919 Returning to England in 1910, Agatha found her mother Clara ill. They holidayed in the warmer climate of Cairo in Egypt, then a popular tourist destination for wealthy Britons. Staying for three months at the Gezirah Palace Hotel, Agatha always chaperoned by her mother attended many social functions in search of a husband. Although visiting such reat interest in archaeology and Egyptology prominent in her later years. Returning to Britain, she continued her social activities in search of a husband. Writing and performing in amateur theatrics, she helped put on a play called The Blue Beard of Unhappiness with female friends. Her writing extended to both poetry and music. Some early works saw publication, but she decided against focusing on either of these as future professions. While recovering in bed from illness, she penned her first short story The House of Beauty, about 6000 words on the world of madness and dreams, a subject of fascination. Later biographer Janet Morgan commented that despite infelicities of style, the story was nevertheless compelling. Other shorts followed, most illustrated her interest in spiritualism and the paranormal, including The Call of Wings and The Little Lonely God. Under pseudonyms, various magazines rejected all her early submissions, although revised and published later, some under new titles. Christie then set her first novel, Snow Upon the Desert, in Cairo, and drew from her recent experiences in the city. Under the pseudonym Monosyllaba, she was perturbed when various publishers all declined. Clara suggested that her daughter ask for advice from a family friend and neighbor, the successful writer Eden Philpotts. Philpotts obliged her enquiry, encouraged her writing, and sent her an introduction to his literary agent, Hughes Massie. However, he too rejected Snow Upon the Desert, and suggested a second novel. Meanwhile, Christie continued searching for a husband, and had entered into short-lived relationships with four separate men, one engagement, before meeting Archibald Archie Christie at a dance given by Lord and Lady Clifford of Chudleigh, about from Torquay. Archie had been born in India, the son of a Judge in the Indian Civil Service. In England he Joined the air service, stationed at Devon in 1912. The couple quickly fell in love. Upon learning he would be stationed in Farnborough, Archie proposed marriage, and she accepted. 914 saw the outbreak of World War I, and Archie was sent to France to battle the German forces. Agatha also involved herself in the war effort, Joining the Voluntary Aid Detachment and attending to wounded soldiers at the hospital in Torquay. In this position, she was responsible for aiding the doctors nd maintaining morale, performing 3,400 hours of unpaid work between October 1914 a nd December 1916. As a dispenser, she finally earned E16 yearly until the end of her service in September 1918. She met her fianc? © Archie, in London during his leave at the end of 1914, and they married on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. They met throughout the war every time that he was posted home. Rising through the ranks, he was eventually stationed back to Britain in September 1918 as a colonel in the Air Ministry. They settled into a flat at 5 Northwick Terrace in St. Johns Wood, Northwest London. First novels: 1919-1923 Christie had long been a fan of detective novels, having enjoyed Wilkie Collins The Woman in White and The Moonstone as well as Sir Arthur Conan Doyles early Sherlock Holmes stories. She wrote her own detective novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles, featuring Hercule Poirot. A former Belgian police officer noted for his twirly large magnificent moustaches and egg-shaped head, he was a refugee to Britain after Germany invaded Belgium, inspired by real Belgian refugees in Torquay. The Styles manuscript was not accepted by such publishing companies as Hodder and months, then accepted if she would change the ending. She duly did so, and signed a contract she later felt was exploitative. Christie meanwhile settled into married life, giving birth to daughter Rosalind at Ashfield in August 1919, where the couple having few friends in London spent much of their time. Having left the Air Force at the end of the war, Archie started in the City financial sector at a relatively low salary, though they still employed a maid. Christies second novel, The Secret Adversary, featured new detective couple Tommy and Tuppence. Again published by The Bodley Head, it earned her E50. A third novel again featured Poirot, Murder on the Links, as id short stories commissioned by Bruce Ingram, editor of Sketch magazine. In order to tour the world promoting the British Empire Exhibition, the couple left their daughter Rosalind with Agathas mother and sister. The Speckled Band Essay ThesisThere are also numerous instances where the killer is not brought to Justice in the legal sense but nstead dies, for example Death Comes as the End, And Then There Were None, Death on the Nile, Dumb Witness, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Crooked House, Appointment with Death, The Hollow, Nemesis, Cat Among the Pigeons, and The Secret Adversary. In some cases, this is with the collusion of the detective involved. In some stories, the question of whether formal Justice will be done is left unresolved, such as Five Little Pigs and Ordeal by Innocence. Christie often made the unlikeliest character guilty. This happened so often that it became a clich? ©; savvy readers could dentify the murderer by simply identifying the least likely suspect. On an edition of Desert Island Discs in 2007, Brian Aldiss claimed that Agatha Christie told him that she wrote her books up to the last chapter, then decided who the most unlikely suspect was, after which she would then go back and make the necessary changes to frame that person. John Currans Agatha Christie: The Secret Notebooks describes different working methods for every book in her autobiography, thus contradicting this claim. The first Hercule Poirot began with tram passengers and Belgian refugees. Man in the Brown Suit started with Belcher from the world tour. Murder on the Links began with news from France, a wife debunked, who claimed intruders tied her up and murdered her husband. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd killer was suggested by brother-in-law James Watt. The Big Four, helped by Archies brother Cambell, was a stop-gap collection of Sketch magazine stories, for money when her husband left. Critical reception The worlds best-selling mystery writer, and often referred to as the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie is considered a master of suspense, plotting, and characterisation. Some critics however regarded Christies plotting abilities as considerably exceeding her literary ones. The novelist Raymond Chandler criticised her in his essay, The Simple Art of Murder, and the American literary critic Edmund Wilson was dismissive of Christie and the detective fiction genre generally in his New Yorker essay, Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? . Stereotyping Christie occasionally inserted stereotyped descriptions of characters into her work, particularly before the end of the Second World War, and particularly in regard to Italians, Jews, and non-Europeans. For example, in the first editions of the collection The Mysterious Mr Quin, in the short story The Soul of the Croupier, she described Hebraic men with hook-noses wearing rather flamboyant Jewellery; in later editions the pas sage was edited to describe sallow men wearing same. In The Hollow, published as late as 1946, one of the more unsympathetic characters is a Whitechapel Jewess with dyed hair and a voice like a corncrake a small woman with a thick nose, henna red and a disagreeable voice. To contrast with the more stereotyped descriptions, Christie sometimes characterised the foreigners in such a rue of her Jewish characters, who while seen as unEnglish are seldom actually criminals. Often she is lovingly affectionate or teasing with her prejudices. After four years of war-torn London, Christie hoped to return some day to Syria, which she described as gentle fertile country and its simple people, who know how to laugh and how to enjoy life; who are idle and gay, and who have dignity, good manners, and a great sense of humour, and to whom death is not terrible. After trouble with an incompetent Swiss French nursery helper Marcelle for toddler Rosalind, she decides Scottish preferred good with the young. The French were hopeless disciplinarians Germans good and methodical, but it was not German that I really wanted Rosalind to learn. The Irish were gay but made trouble in the house; the English were of all kinds She proposes this, after the fact, knowing the chosen Charlotte lasts decades. Her book titles, changed by American publishers, for example Ten Little Niggers to Ten Little Indians, were kept the same across the Atlantic, after bushels of fan mail. Archaeology Christie had always had an interest in archaeology. On a trip to the excavation site at Ur in 1930, she met her future husband, Sir Max Mallowan, a distinguished archaeologist, but her fame as an author far surpassed his fame in archaeology. Prior to meeting Mallowan, Christie had not had any extensive brushes with archaeology, but once the two married they made sure to only go to sites where they could work together. While accompanying Mallowan on countless archaeological trips, Christie not only wrote novels and short stories, but also contributed work to the archaeological sites, more specifically to the archaeological restoration and labeling of ancient exhibits which includes tasks such as cleaning nd conserving delicate ivory pieces, reconstructing pottery, developing photos from early excavations which later led to taking photographs of the site and its findings, and taking field notes. So as to not influence the funding of the archaeological excavations, Christie would always pay for her own board and lodging and her travel expenses, and supported excavations as an anonymous sponsor. After the Second World War, she chronicled her time in Syria with fondness in Come Tell Me How You Live. Anecdotes, memories, funny episodes, are strung in a rough timeline, with ore emphasis on eccentric characters, lovely scenery, than factual accuracy. From 8 November 2001 to 24 March 2002, The British Museum had an exhibit named Agatha Christie and Archaeology: Mystery in Mesopotamia, which presented the secret life of Agatha Christie and the influences of archaeology in her life and works. Archaeological influences in her writing Many of the settings for Agatha Christies books were directly inspired by the many archaeological field seasons spent in the Middle East on the sites managed by her second husband Max Mallowan. Her time spent at the many locations featured in her ooks is very apparent by the extreme detail in which she describes them. One such site featured in her books is the temple site of Abu Simbel in Death on the Nile, as well as the great detail in which she describes life at the dig site in Murder in Mesopotamia. Characters Of the characters in her books, Christie has often showcased the archaeologist and experts in Middle Eastern cultures and artifacts. Most notably are the characters of many minor characters in They Came to Baghdad were archaeologists. More indirectly, Christies famous character of Hercule Poirot can be compared to an rchaeologist in his detailed scrutiny of all facts both large and small. Cornelius Holtorf, an academic archaeologist, describes an archaeologist as a detective as one of the key themes of archaeology in popular culture. He describes an archaeologist as a professional detective of the past who has the ability to reveal secrets for the greater of society. Holtorfs description of the archaeologist as a detective is very similar to Christies Poirot who is hugely observant and is very careful to look at the small details as they often impart the most information. Many of Christies detective haracters show some archaeological traits through their careful attention to clues and artifacts alike. Miss Marple, another of Christies most-famous characters, shares these characteristics of careful deduction though the attention paid to the small clues. Spirituality Christies life within the archaeological world not only shaped her settings and characters for her books but also in the issues she highlights. One of the stronger influences is her love of the mystical and mysterious. Many of Christies books and short stories both set in the Middle East and back in England have a decidedly therworldly influence in which religious sects, sacrifices, ceremony, and seances play a part. Such stories include The Hound of Death and the Idol House of Astarte. This theme was greatly strengthened by Christies time spent in the Middle East where she was consistently surrounded by the religious temples and spiritual history of the towns and cities they were excavating in Mallowans archaeological work. Travel as adventure During Christie and Mallowans time in the Middle East, along with their time spent among the many tombs, temples, and museums, there was also a large amount of time spent traveling to and from Mallowans sites. The travelling involved in the archaeology had a large influence on Christies writing, which is often reflected as some type of transportation playing a part in her murderers schemes. The large amount of travel done by Christie and Mallowan has not only made for a great writing theme, as shown in her famous novel The Murder on the Orient Express, but also tied into the idea of archaeology as an adventure that has become so important in todays popular culture as described by Cornelius Holtorf in his book Archaeology is a Brand. Popular novels with heavy archaeological influences Murder in Mesopotamia Appointment with Death Death on the Nile They Came to Baghdad Portrayals of Christie Christie has been portrayed on a number of occasions in film and television. Several biographical programs have been made, such as the 2004 BBC television programme Williams, Anna Massey, and Bonnie Wright. Christie has also been portrayed fictionally. Some of these have explored and offered accounts of Christies disappearance in 1926, including the 1979 film Agatha and the Doctor Who episode The Unicorn and the Wasp . Others, such as 1980 Hungarian film, Kojak Budapesten create their own scenarios involving Christies criminal skill. In the 1986 TV play, Murder by the Book, Christie herself murdered one of her fictional-turned-real characters, Poirot. The heroine of Liar-softs 2008 visual novel Shikkoku no Sharnoth: What a Beautiful Tomorrow, Mary Clarissa Christie, is based on the real-life Christie. Christie features as a character in Gaylord Larsens Dorothy and Agatha and The London Blitz Murders by Max Allan Collins. Christies works Adaptations Film Television 1937 spiders web 1938 Love from a Stranger 1947 Love from a Stranger 1949 Ten Little Indians 1959 Ten Little Indians 1970 The Murder at the Vicarage 1980 Why Didnt They Ask Evans? 82 spiders web 1982 The Seven Dials Mystery 1982 The Agatha Christie Hour 1982 Murder Is Easy 1982 The Witness for the Prosecution 1983 The Secret Adversary 1983 Partners in Crime 1983 A Caribbean Mystery 1983 Sparkling Cyanide 1984 The Body in the Library 1985 Murder with Mirrors 1985 The Moving Finger 1985 A Murder is Announced 1985 A pocket Full of Rye 1985 Thirteen at Dinn er 1986 Dead Marls Folly 1986 Murder in Three Acts 1986 The Murder at the Vicarage 1987 Sleeping Murder 1987 At Bertrams Hotel 1987 Nemesis 1987 4. 50 from Paddington 1989 The Man in the Brown Suit 1989 A Caribbean Mystery