Murder On The Orient Express Essay Research

Murder On The Orient Express Essay, Research Paper

Murder on the Orient Express

Agatha Christie

Ø Introduction

· Author- Agatha Christie was born in 1890 in England and raised by a wealthy American father and English mother. Her books have sold over a billion copies in English and another billion in 44 foreign languages. She is the author of 78 crime novels and was made a dame in 1971. She was married twice, her second husband being an archeologist whom she often traveled with on his archeological exhibitions to the Middle East. This gave her an understanding of that part of the world, which she used in this story. Agatha Christie died in 1976 in her home in England.

· Agatha Christie wrote Murder on the Orient Express in 1934 and based it on two events that actually occurred.

-A very cold winter in Europe in 1928 to 1929 when the Orient Express was stuck in a snowdrift near the Turkish border for six days and the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby in the United States in 1932 which Agatha called the Armstrong family.

The Armstrong case was a kidnapping performed by a gangster named Casetti who kidnapped the daughter of the extremely rich American Armstrong family but instead of returning her when the ransom was paid instead left her to die. This is the most vital clue in the whole case as once the murdered Mr Ratchett is connected to being Casetti Hercule Poirot easily unravels the suspects true identities.

· Genre- the genre of Murder on the Orient Express I think is a detective murder mystery as the murder seems as though it will never be logically solved.

Ø Setting

· Orient Express- is one of the world’s most famous luxury trains, which made its maiden voyage from Paris in 1883 to Istanbul; its last regular scheduled service was in 1977. The Orient Express made this long journey from Western societies to the East into a trip that only took a few days in surroundings of utmost luxury.

· How important is the setting. The setting is extremely important as the train has become snowbound and all the passengers can not leave. It is therefore considered a closed setting. This setting allows the identities of the passengers to be easily found by looking at their passports but these also may be faked. It also means that all the suspects can be found easily as there is nowhere to hide or run. So it is highly like that the murderer is still on the train.

Ø Plot

· Murder on the Orient Express- After finishing his affairs in Syria, Hercule Poirot arrives at the Tokatlian Hotel in Stamboul for a sight seeing tour of the city. To his disgust a telegram arrives informing him that he must return to England at once on business.

· Quickly Poirot tries to book passage on the next Orient Express. While dining at the Tokatlian Poirot unexpectedly runs into his old friend Monsieur Bouc a director of the Companie Internationle des Wagon-lits, which runs the Express and to there delight they find out that they will be travelling together on the orient express.

· At the station Poirot and Bouc discover that the sleeping car is fully booked a most unusual occurrence in winter. Through Bouc’s help one passenger who is late loses their berth in the carriage that is made up of passengers bound for Calais to Poirot. Poirot finds himself travelling with a curious assortment of passengers of all nationalities, social classes and occupations all travelling in the off-season.

· Although with a carriage of such strange people one character especially attracts Poirot attention: a smartly dressed, obviously rich, evil looking American. The next day to his surprise the same American approaches the detective in the dining cart. Samuel Edward Ratchett informs Poirot that his life has been threatened. He offers Poirot a large sum of money if the famous Belgium will protect his life. Poirot refuses saying, ‘If you will forgive me for being personal but I do not like your face.

· The next morning the American is found dead of multiple stab wounds in the compartment next to Poirot’s. The situation is even more complicated as the train has becomes marooned in a snowdrift between the towns of Vincovci and Brod in Yugoslavia.

· Naturally Monsieur Bouc, with the local police unavailable because of the snow, calls upon Poirot to conduct the investigation. The suspects are quickly narrowed to the individuals who spent the night in the Calais coach. With the evidence left in the murderer berth examined and the suspects interviewed Poirot arrives on not one, but two solutions to the crime.

· Poirot calls for all the passengers in the Calais coach to meet in the dining cart were he puts forward his two solutions. Dr Constantine and Monsieur Bouc will decide on which one will be correct.

· Poirot solutions are:

- The first solution is that a man disguised as a conductor entered the Orient Express on the station before the train became snowbound and entered Mr Ratchetts berth with a key and stabbed him twelve times. The murderer then left through the connecting doors between berths of Mr Ratchett and Mrs Hubbards dumping the knife in her room. Then on his way out he placed his conductors uniform in the suitcase of a passenger who was not in their berth at the time and left the train via their same entry before the train

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