Themes

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

The Administration of Justice

Most murder mysteries examine justice—its violation, through the act of murder, and its restoration, through the work of a detective who solves the crime and ensures that the murderer pays for his or her deed. And Then There Were None examines justice, but it bends the formula by making the victims of murder people who committed murder themselves. Thus, the killings on Indian Island are arguably acts of justice. Judge Wargrave does the work of detective and murderer by picking out those who are guilty and punishing them.

Whether we accept the justice of the events on Indian Island depends on both whether we accept Wargrave’s belief that all the murder victims deserve their deaths and whether we accept that Wargrave has the moral authority to pronounce and carry out the sentences. At least some of the murders are unjust if we do not consider all of Wargrave’s victims murderers. Emily Brent, for example, did not actually kill her servant, Beatrice Taylor. Thus, one could argue that she deserves a lesser punishment for her sin.

Christie explores the line that divides those who act unjustly from those who seek to restore justice. She suggests that unjust behavior does not necessarily make someone bad and enforcing justice does not necessarily make someone good . Wargrave’s victims, although they have violated the rules of moral behavior in the past, are, for the most part, far more likable and decent human beings than Wargrave. Although Wargrave serves justice in a technical sense, he is a cruel and unsympathetic man, and likely insane.

The Effects of Guilt on One’s Conscience

By creating a story in which every character has committed a crime, Christie explores different human responses to the burden of a guilty conscience. Beginning with the first moments after the recorded voice reveals the guests’ crimes, each character takes a different approach to dealing with his or her guilt.

The characters who publicly and self-righteously deny their crimes are tormented by guilt in private. General Macarthur, for instance, brusquely dismisses the claim that he killed his wife’s lover. By the following day, however, guilt so overwhelms him that he resignedly waits to die. Dr. Armstrong is equally dismissive of the charges against him, but he soon starts dreaming about the woman who died on his operating table.

On the other hand, the people who own up to their crimes are less likely to feel pangs of guilt. Lombard willingly admits to leaving tribesmen to die in the African bush, insisting that he did it to save his own life and would willingly do it again. Tony Marston readily owns up to running down the two children, and he displays no sense of having done anything wrong. Neither of the two men gives a moment’s private thought to his crime.

While the ones who do not own up to their crimes feel the guiltiest, no such correlation exists between levels of guilt and likelihood of survival. Conscience has no bearing on who lives the longest, as is illustrated by the contrast between the last two characters left alive, Lombard and Vera. Lombard feels no guilt, and the air of doom that enshrouds the island doesn’t affect him. Vera, on the other hand, is so guilt-ridden that she ends her life by succumbing to the seemingly inevitable conclusion of the “Ten Little Indians” poem and the aura of almost supernatural vengeance that pervades the novel.

The Danger of Reliance on Class Distinctions

And Then There Were None takes place in 1930s Britain, a society stratified into strict social classes. These distinctions play a subtle but important role in the novel. As the situation on the island becomes more and more desperate, social hierarchies continue to dictate behavior, and their persistence ultimately makes it harder for some characters to survive. Rogers continues to perform his butler’s duties even after it becomes clear that a murderer is on the loose, and even after the murderer has killed his wife. Because it is expected of a man of his social class, Rogers washes up after people, remains downstairs to clean up after the others have gone to bed, and rises early in the morning to chop firewood. The separation from the group that his work necessitates makes it easy for the murderer to kill him. Additionally, the class-bound mentality of Dr. Armstrong proves disastrous for himself and others, as he refuses to believe that a respectable professional man like Wargrave could be the killer.

Places and objects

Indian Island: The mysterious, isolated estate that all the characters are lured to, so that they can be picked off, one by one.

Stickleaven: the small coastal town all the guests stop at the on their way to Indian Island.

Clock: This large marble clock seems at first innocuous, but later it is used to fulfill the eighth section of the rhyme. Its shape is the key.

Wool and curtain: Wool and curtain These are the two stolen items used to create Wargrave's death scene.

Summing up: In British courts , after both lawyers have presented their cases, the judge explains the value of all the evidence, giving the judge the opportunity to sway the minds of the jury.

Heliographing: This is a method of signaling method that uses a mirror to flash in Morse code over a long distance.

Mark of Cain: The mark that god gave Cain to forever identify him as a murderer. It was supposedly a mark in the center of the forehead.

Characters

Justice Wargrave: He is a recently retired judge, lured to the island by a letter from a flighty acquaintance, he is indignant when faced with accusations, utterly sure of himself and his actions.

Emily Brent: A crotchety old woman, she goes to the Island for the promise of a free vacation, but finds herself accused of driving her servant girl to death.

Vera Claythorne: She used to be the nanny for an upper-class family, but her charge died in a drowning accident under her care. She was cleared of any involvement at an inquiry, but the killer has other thoughts on the matter. As people die around her, she begins to lose her mind.

Phillip Lombard: A former Army man, he's sent to the Island by an intermediary, under the story of acting as an 'Assistant' for anything his employer might need. In reality, he's just been lured there to face punishment for his involvement in a Native massacre in Africa.

General Macarthur: The General is lured to the Island with the promise that some of his old friends are going to be there. When he arrives, however, he learns that he's being called to take responsibility for a sending a subordinate off to death during wartime.

Dr. Armstrong: A popular physician to the London upper class, Dr. Armstrong is hired to come to the island for a medical consultation. He believes that he's put his past behind him, that no one remembers that woman he killed on the operating table because he was drunk. Of , that's the very reason the killer has lured him to the Island.

Tony Marston: A drunken rich boy, he ran two children over with his car, and was punished by having his license taken away for a year. The killer decides that he hasn't been punished enough.

Rogers: He and his wife are hired by Mr. Owen as the caretakers of the Island. They had murdered their last employer, wanting to collect on their inheritance.

Mrs. Rogers: Rogers' wife. She took part in the murder of their last employer. She's been wracked by guilt, and hasn't slept well since.

William Blore: A former police officer turned private detective, he was hired to watch all the other guests on the Island. Of course, that was just a story. Actually, he was lured to the Island because he had framed an innocent man for a serious crime, and the man had died in jail.

Minor Characters

U.N Owen: The pseudonym that the killer uses to purchase the Island and then to lure his victims there.

Constance Culmington: An old friend of Wargrave's - her name is used on Wargrave's invitation to the Island.

Davis: This is the fake name and identity that Blore uses when he meets the other guests.

Fred Narracott: He is a Sticklehaven local. He provides ferry service to and from the Island.

Sir Thomas Legge: The lead police officer in charge of the investigation into the murders on Indian Island.

Inspector Maine: Legge's second in command, he has collected all the evidence about the murders on Indian Island.

Mr. Morris: The drug-dealing criminal who acted as an intermediary for Mr. Owen. He personally hired Blore and Lombard.

Hugo: Cyril's Uncle. Vera was in love with him - she killed Cyril so that Hugo would inherit the family fortune.

Cyril: Vera was hired as his nanny. She murdered him by allowing him to swim out to the rocks, knowing full well that he'd never be able to swim that far.

Plot

Eight strangers are lured to the mysterious Indian Island. Some of them believe that they've been invited by an old friend - one that they can't contact to confirm the invitation. The rest have been hired by a mysterious employer. Once they arrive at the island they meet the last two 'guests', the husband and wife butler-cook team. In each of their rooms is a poem entitled 'Ten Little Indians' which tells the story of ten Indian boys who die in unusual fashions. A conversation between two of the guests leads them to realize that none of them know their host - the mysterious U. N. Owen. At dinner, they notice ten Indian figurines on the table, matching the poem. After their first dinner, once they're all in the drawing-room, a voice reads out a list of accusations against them - each one of them is accused of murdering at least one person, and they have been brought to the Island to pay for their crimes. No one is sure what to make of the recording, until Marston takes a drink - and dies of Cyanide poisoning. Just as the poem predicted.

Everyone goes to bed uneasy, some feeling guilty about the crimes they've committed, others just worried about their safety. In the morning, they discover that the cook has died in the night as well, although it may have been natural causes... The boat that is supposed to bring supplies is very late, and soon they realize that no one is coming to take them off the Island. They notice, as well, that every time someone dies one of the ten ceramic figurines disappear. As everyone begins to suspect one another, three of the men decide to search the Island to make sure that no one else is hiding on it. After an exhaustive search, they discover that there are definitely only eight people on the Island. For a moment, they believe that the deaths are just a horrible coincidence - until someone turns up with their head smashed in. Since there is no one else on the Island, that means that the killer can only be one of them.

The Judge leads everyone to suspect each other, making sure that everyone understands that no one can be trusted. Everyone goes to sleep scared, some of them slowly being driven mad by their guilt. The next morning, Rogers, the butler,  disappears. They quickly find his body - he's been murdered with an axe. Everyone starts getting paranoid. Emily, the old woman, begins acting strange, and everyone leaves her alone for a little while - when they return, she's been murdered, leaving only five people left. Wargrave, the Judge, suggests that they lock up all their possible weapons, including the revolver that Lombard brought. The revolver has been stolen though. They tear the house apart looking for it, but they can't find it.

Everyone decides to just sit around, with only one leaving at any one time - theoretically, they should all be safe that way. Vera, the one most wracked by guilt, goes up to her room and is frightened by a strand of seaweed that represents the boy she murdered by drowning. Everyone goes to check on her, and when they return to the drawing room, they discover that the Judge has been murdered - but they can't figure out who had the chance to do it. That night, the ex-policeman, Blore, hears someone sneaking out. He searches the remaining rooms, and discover that Armstrong, the doctor, is missing - so he must be the killer.

The next day, Lombard, Blore and Vera, the three remaining guests, walk around the Island, trying to signal the mainland with a mirror. Blore goes back to the hoe for lunch, but is crushed by a falling slab of marble. Lombard and Vera are sure Armstrong is the murderer - until they find his body washed up against some rocks. Even though evidence has shown that neither of them could be the killer, Lombard and Vera don't trust each other. Vera steals Lombard's gun and shoots him. Happy to finally be safe and alone, and more than a little crazy, Vera walks back to the house, and finds that someone has set up a noose in her room. Finally giving into her guilt, she hangs herself.

The police find the Island a few days later, and are puzzled by the mystery - they can't figure out who killed everyone, since there are only bodies on the Island, and no one could have escaped it. A few weeks later, a bottle is caught a fisherman. Inside it is a confession written by Wargrave - it explains and why he killed everyone. His whole life he had twin conflicting desires - one for justice, the other to kill people. He'd enjoyed killing the guilty by sentencing them to death in his court, but that wasn't good enough. He wanted to kill people himself. Once he found that he was dying of cancer, he decided to go through with it. He found nine guilty people and lured them to the Island, then murdered them one by one, using Armstrong to help fake his death so that he wouldn't be a suspect. Once everyone was dead, he arranged to kill himself so that it would look like his fake death - so the police would be confused by an unsolvable crime. Lastly, he sealed up his confession in a bottle and threw it out to sea, because he couldn't bear the thought of no one ever knowing about how brilliant he was.

The author

Agatha Christie, the world's most famous female mystery writer, was born Agatha Miller in 1890. She was raised upper-middle class in Devon, the youngest of three children. An intelligent child, she was tutored at home, never attending public schools. At the age of 24, she married Archie Christie, a British fighter pilot. While he was off at war, she worked as a nurse in an army hospital. During the war, she began working on the novel that would introduce the world to her most famous character, Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. She would finish the novel in 1915, but didn't publish it until 1920. The novel quickly became a best-seller, launching her literary career, which would go on to span some eighty novels and fourteen plays, including 'The Mousetrap", the longest-running play in history. Her second novel was published in 1922, and then for every year afterwards, until her death in 1976, she put out a new book every year, keeping her on the best seller list for most of her adult life.

In 1926, Agatha Christie disappeared for ten days. It was a huge national mystery. She was discovered in a hotel ten days later, suffering from amnesia. She had been under a lot of stress in her life - she was in a difficult marriage and her mother had just died. Two years later she divorced her husband, and two years later she was remarried to an assistant archaeologist named Max Mallowan. Agatha Christie is the best-selling novelist of all time. She's sold more copies than any other author, with the exception of the bible. Her assembled books have only been outsold by the bible. She's considered the creator of the modern mystery story.

And Then There Were None was written during the Second World War while Agatha was working as hospital dispenser. It is one of her most famous and significant works, considered one of the greatest misteries ever written. It was lauded at the time for its near unsolvability. Christie was famous for her ability to write incredibly difficult mysteries without ever cheating. She never had a character lie in their thoughts to purposefully mislead the reader. She took pride in being honest with he audience. At most, all she would do is have a character say or thing something that could be taken two ways - if you couldn't figure out the mystery, the clues would be clearly visible the second time around once you knew who the killer was.

And Then There Were None was originally titled 'Ten Little Niggers', but when it was published in the US, the name was changed to 'And Then There Were None'. In the 60s, during a heightened period of sensitivity, the title of the play was changed to 'Ten Little Indians'. Since then, theplay has always been titled 'Ten Little Indians', and the novel 'And Then There Were None'. Her most popular novel, 'And Then There Were None' has been has been adapted to the screen more than any other of her works, a total of 9 times, including a Russian version and an Indian version, complete with musical numbers. The novel continues to capture readers' imaginations even today.

Introduction

And Then There Were None is a detective fiction novel by Agatha Christie, first published in the United Kingdom by the Collins Crime Club on 6 November 1939 under the title Ten Little Niggers. The title was changed in the United States by Dodd, Mead and Company in January 1940 to Ten Little Indians, as the original title, which originally derived from antiquated English terminology, is considered racist by modern standards. In the novel, ten people, who have previously been complicit in the deaths of others but have escaped notice or punishment, are tricked into coming onto an island. Although the guests are the only people on the island, each is murdered one by one, in a manner paralleling, inexorably and sometimes grotesquely, the old nursery rhyme, Ten Little Indians.

                                                 Movie trailer of "And then there were None"