Techniques of Detective Fiction in the Novelistic Art of Agatha Christie

A monograph presented to the faculty of the Department of English at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts by Claudia Collins Burns in January of 1975

The Observation of Trifles : Culinary Knowledge in Detective Fiction

Food in detective fiction functions in multiple ways. It can heighten realism, enhance the setting, and even act as a murder weapon. While there are books and published articles dedicated to analyzing food as a literary device in detective fiction, this essay investigates how the culinary knowledge of a detective can signify larger ideological meanings regarding gender, class, and identity. For example, a dinner of curried mutton acts as a clue to the mystery for Sherlock Holmes in “Silver Blaze,” but for readers the meal can illustrate Holmes’s relationship with Victorian masculinity and imperialism. This essay builds on the work of authors such as Pierre Verdaguer, Beth Kalikoff, Andrea Hynynen, Angelica Michelis, and Silvia Baučeková. I compare the culinary knowledge of two professional male detectives – Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot – with the culinary knowledge of an amateur female sleuth – Miss Marple. This analysis differs from scholars such a Baučeková\u27s by looking at more than one author and focusing on the culinary knowledge of a detective as well as the food they consume to gain larger cultural context. With all the clues, weapons, and red herrings found within detective fiction, it can be difficult to look beyond “whodunit.” This essay points readers to specific instances and dishes in the works of Arthur Conon Doyle and Agatha Christie where food proves to be more than a clue to the mystery

Komparativna analiza zločina i strategije njegova rješavanja u djelima Agathe Christie

In Agatha Christie's literary career, which spanned over more than fifty years, the tally of murdered people in her mystery works approached three hundred. Her job as a nurse during World War I left a lasting mark on her career because during that period she developed a special interest in chemistry, poisons and drugs, which later influenced her writing style, and using poison became her forte. Consequently, many of her literary characters fell victim to some kind of toxin – arsenic, morphine, sleeping pills and even nicotine, to name a few. However, a large part of her books features a wide array of more violent and manual death causes – strangulation, stabbing, coshing, drowning and many more. Most of those crimes are solved by one of Christie's two most prominent detectives, a professional Belgian detective Hercule Poirot or a white-haired old lady Jane Marple. The former is a well-travelled retired Belgian policeman who gained worldwide fame due to his detective skills, and the latter a likeable spinster who spent most of her years living a rural life and only became an active investigator in the later stage of her life. Due to their different lifestyles, both their characters and investigation methods largely differ, but they are both successful when tackling a crime. The aim of this paper is to analyze some of the murders portrayed in Christie's works, describe the methods used by Monsieur Poirot and Miss Marple of solving the crimes, explain the main features of the two investigators, and compare them and their strategies of unravelling the mysteries surrounding the crime

Komparativna analiza zločina i strategije njegova rješavanja u djelima Agathe Christie

In Agatha Christie's literary career, which spanned over more than fifty years, the tally of murdered people in her mystery works approached three hundred. Her job as a nurse during World War I left a lasting mark on her career because during that period she developed a special interest in chemistry, poisons and drugs, which later influenced her writing style, and using poison became her forte. Consequently, many of her literary characters fell victim to some kind of toxin – arsenic, morphine, sleeping pills and even nicotine, to name a few. However, a large part of her books features a wide array of more violent and manual death causes – strangulation, stabbing, coshing, drowning and many more. Most of those crimes are solved by one of Christie's two most prominent detectives, a professional Belgian detective Hercule Poirot or a white-haired old lady Jane Marple. The former is a well-travelled retired Belgian policeman who gained worldwide fame due to his detective skills, and the latter a likeable spinster who spent most of her years living a rural life and only became an active investigator in the later stage of her life. Due to their different lifestyles, both their characters and investigation methods largely differ, but they are both successful when tackling a crime. The aim of this paper is to analyze some of the murders portrayed in Christie's works, describe the methods used by Monsieur Poirot and Miss Marple of solving the crimes, explain the main features of the two investigators, and compare them and their strategies of unravelling the mysteries surrounding the crime

“Everything is simple if you arrange the facts methodically": A Narratological Approach to Agatha Christie's Fictional Mysteries

Detective novels are one of the most popular literary genres in the English language. However, although several writers have contributed to this literary formula, the most prominent author is undoubtedly Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie (1890 - 1976). Christie is a best-selling crime and mystery author who is often regarded as the genre's finest exponent. This Bachelor’s Thesis is largely concerned with evaluating detective fiction, especially the subgenres of thriller and whodunit, in two of Christie’s best-known masterpieces: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) and And Then There Were None (1939). An in-depth examination of both works is provided here in order to prove the representation of both subgenres in Christie’s ouvre and to contrast their differences, as well as to determine which typology prevails in each caseLas novelas detectivescas son uno de los géneros literarios más populares en lengua inglesa. Sin embargo, aunque diferentes escritores han contribuido a este formato literario, la autora más destacada es sin duda Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie (1890 - 1976). Christie es una autora de best-sellers de crimen y misterio, considerada el mejor exponente del género. Este proyecto se encarga en gran medida de evaluar la ficción detectivesca, especialmente los subgéneros thriller y whodunit, en dos conocidas novelas de esta autora: El asesinato de Roger Ackroyd (1926) y Y no quedó ninguno (1939). Se ofrece un análisis en profundidad de ambas obras para demostrar la presencia de ambos subgéneros en la producción novelística de Agatha Christie y contrastar sus diferencias, así como para determinar qué tipología prevalece en cada caso.Departamento de Filología InglesaGrado en Estudios Inglese

Komparativna analiza zločina i strategije njegova rješavanja u djelima Agathe Christie

In Agatha Christie's literary career, which spanned over more than fifty years, the tally of murdered people in her mystery works approached three hundred. Her job as a nurse during World War I left a lasting mark on her career because during that period she developed a special interest in chemistry, poisons and drugs, which later influenced her writing style, and using poison became her forte. Consequently, many of her literary characters fell victim to some kind of toxin – arsenic, morphine, sleeping pills and even nicotine, to name a few. However, a large part of her books features a wide array of more violent and manual death causes – strangulation, stabbing, coshing, drowning and many more. Most of those crimes are solved by one of Christie's two most prominent detectives, a professional Belgian detective Hercule Poirot or a white-haired old lady Jane Marple. The former is a well-travelled retired Belgian policeman who gained worldwide fame due to his detective skills, and the latter a likeable spinster who spent most of her years living a rural life and only became an active investigator in the later stage of her life. Due to their different lifestyles, both their characters and investigation methods largely differ, but they are both successful when tackling a crime. The aim of this paper is to analyze some of the murders portrayed in Christie's works, describe the methods used by Monsieur Poirot and Miss Marple of solving the crimes, explain the main features of the two investigators, and compare them and their strategies of unravelling the mysteries surrounding the crime

The imagery of spiritual concepts in teaching process expressed by Phraseological units of the English, Tatar and Turkish languages

© 2017 Serials Publications.Phraseological units in all languages are correlated with background knowledge of their speakers, peculiar way of life and ethnic features in general. This research focuses on the comparative analysis of phraseological units and their usage in the teaching process in genetically and structurally unrelated linguocultures (Tatar, English and Turkish). It has been conducted at the intersection of anthropocentric, linguo-cognitive, communicative-functional and structural-semantic paradigms, and is based on the prominent analysis of ethnocultural data from all respective languages. The linguistic worldview, as well as phraseological units, of the English, Turkish and Tatar languages express many spiritual notions. A soul is described as an inner topos, i.e. a person's inner world. In the latest decades linguists have been building their research around cognitive and, particularly, conceptological topics. As a result, they have touched upon such fundamental problems as the structural representation of knowledge and ways of its conceptualization in the language. This research dwells upon the content and sphere of language objectification of different nationalities. Furthermore, it stresses out specific ways of expressing spiritual concepts in phraseological worldviews of the above-mentioned ethnic groups. The paper analyses the phraseological data which belong to different language groups (Turkic and Germanic) and Turkic subgroups (Tatar and Turkish). Therefore, scientists have got valuable results on the typological level. The general characteristics of a linguistic identity and its components revealed and systematized in this research, namely linguocultural units, principles of their classification and comparison, are of great importance for further scientific endeavors in this field. The comparative analysis of spiritual concepts and their usage in teaching process are expressed in phraseological units is conducted in accordance with the linguocultural approach

Markedness in the language of Hercule Poirot

Magistrska naloga preučuje glavne značilnosti angleščine Hercula Poirota, izmišljenega detektiva Agathe Christie. Glavni cilj raziskave je določiti in predstaviti Poirotov način govora skozi prizmo skladnje, ter v manjši meri stilistike. Trije pojmi so ključnega pomena za teoretični del in razmerja med njimi opredeljujejo vso nadaljno analizoti so slovničnost, nivo sprejemljivosti, ter označenost. Slovničnost se ukvarja s slovničnimi pravili in vprašanji, nivo sprejemljivosti se ugotavlja zlasti v povezavi s pomenskostjo in stilistiko, kategorija označenosti je pa tista vseobsegajoča značilnost, vrednost ali oznaka, ki se določi preko kombinacije večih jezikovnih dejavnikov. Toda za pričujoče magistrsko delo je najpomembnejši izmed dejavnikov izrazita poudarjenost oz. emfaza smiselnega stavčnega naglasa. Posledično to nalogo najbolj zanimajo slovnične napake ter zgradbe, ki kažejo v nekem smislu poseben ali nenavaden smiselni naglas v želji, da se določen del stavka izrecno poudari in čustveno obarvatake slovnične zgradbe je to delo opredelilo kot označene in posledično primerne za analizo. Na skladenjskem nivoju je označenost najbolj opazna pri slovnično nepravilnih zgradbah, recimo pri nepravilni rabi določnega člena in slabo tvorjenih idiomatičnih izrazih, ter pri zgradbah, ki spremenijo ustaljeni besedni vrstni red, kot so recimo inverzija ter tvorba vprašalnih stavkov zgolj s pomočjo intonacije. Na pomensko-stilističnem nivoju se označenost izraža preko rabe francoskih besed in fraz, Poirotove rabe tretjeosebnih oblik ter nekaj raznovrstnih, manj pogostih kategorij. Nekatere kategorije, ki vsebujejo značilnosti obeh nivojev, razkrivajo obseg jezikovnih prijemov kot sta skrčenje nekaterih oblik (kontrakcija) in čustveno poudarjanje povratnih zaimkov. Kronološka raziskava je odkrila, da ostajajo Poirotove jezikovne značilnosti dokaj nespremenljive ves čas njegove literarne kariere, ter da le peščica kategorij kaže razvoj ali kakršnokoli napredovanje ali nazadovanje.The thesis examines the main characteristics of the English of Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie’s fictional detective. The main research objective is to ascertain and present Poirot’s way of speaking through the lens of syntax, and to a lesser degree style. Three notions are integral to the theoretical part and the relations between them frame all further analysisthese are grammaticality, acceptability and markedness. Grammaticality deals with syntactic issues and rules, acceptability with mostly semantics and stylistics, and markedness is the overarching characteristic, value or label applied through a combination of any number of factors. However, the most important single factor for this thesis is the emphatic placement of the nuclear tone or focus. Consequently, the thesis is interested primarily in ungrammatical structures, and structures that exhibit special or unusual focus placement as a result of a decision to increase the emphatic, emotional value of an utterancethese are the structures labelled by this thesis as marked and hence suitable for analysis. On the syntactic level, markedness is observed most frequently in ungrammatical structures, such as an incorrect use of the definite article and poorly constructed idiomatic expressions, and by devices that manipulate the normal word order, such as inversion, cleft constructions and the formation of declarative questions. On the semantic and stylistic level, markedness is exemplified through the use of French elements, Poirot’s 3rd person reference to himself and miscellaneous items. Additional categories, sharing characteristics of both levels, reveal the scope of devices such as contraction and the emphatic realisation of reflexive pronouns. A chronological examination of such marked structures reveals the fact that Poirot’s speech is quite uniform throughout his literary existence, with only a few categories exhibiting evolution or progression

A Comedy of Masks: Lord Peter as Harlequin in \u3ci\u3eMurder Must Adverstise\u3c/i\u3e

Examines the symbolism of the Harlequin character in Murder Must Advertise, from its roots in the commedia del’ arte to contemporary parallels. Discusses the symbolic functions of the Harlequin in the novel