'And Then There Were None' by Agatha Christie as a representative of the detective genre

Essay by litel_devilHigh School, 11th gradeA-, May 2004

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The novel 'And Then There Were None' by Agatha Christie is a good representative of the detective genre. The following criteria, that this novel fulfils, classifies it as a detective novel: There is a crime or mystery to be solved, One person (or a group of people) is either a detective or an adult or young person who has set themselves the task of solving the crime or mystery, Information about the perpetrator is revealed, discovered or interpreted slowly over time, There may be suspects and each may be eliminated over time, There is a climax when all is revealed, the culprit is discovered and is brought to justice and their motives for committing the crimes are revealed.

In the novel 'And Then There Were None' by Agatha Christie, there is a crime or mystery to be solved. In this case, the crime is murder and trying to find the murderer is the mystery.

The 10 people living in the house are dying one by one, and the remaining people are trying to unravel who the killer is, an example of this is: "Ought to ferret out the whole mystery before we go. Whole thing's like a detective story" (pg 57). They have established the murderer is one of them as they are on a remote island and there is nobody there except for themselves. They have each set themselves the task of trying to solve the mystery, as they can trust nobody else. This furthermore helps classify this novel as a detective novel.

Information about the murderer is revealed, discovered or interpreted slowly over time in this novel. This is a conversation that the guests were having after three of the ten guests had died: " We are all in grave danger. One of...