Agatha Christie Research Paper

Agatha Christie was born on September 15, 1890 to a middle-class family in Torquay, England. She loved her mother’s house and even named it, calling it Ashfield. Her father died when she was only 11 and she was the youngest of her 3 siblings. Because of this, Agatha had to create ways to entertain herself, which she enjoyed. Christie’s early childhood was extremely happy and peaceful, but, just like everyone else, there was a darker side. She was homeschooled for most of her childhood. This caused her to be very shy and lonely, and so she developed unique relationships with her pets and created imaginary people in her mind, with her most memorable being that of a Gunman. (Gill, 16). She imagined him as an eighteenth-century soldier with bright blue eyes carrying a musket. Christie insists that she was not afraid of the gun or being shot, but rather the simple fact that he was mysteriously appearing in place of someone else. Her fear centered around the fact that this Gunman was constantly appearing on ordinary occasions, like her simply walking down a street or having a picnic, and had

Her most famous and popular detective was Hercule Poirot, a strange, bizarre, and amusing Belgian detective who Christie described in her books as "an extraordinary-looking little man. He was hardly more than five feet, four inches, but carried himself with great dignity. His head was exactly the shape of an egg. His moustache was very still and military.” – Agatha Christie. (DISCovering Authors) The best of Christie's novels are intricate puzzles presented in such a way as to misdirect the reader's attention away from the most important clues. Gillian Gill says that “The great strength of an Agatha Christie novel is that anyone, anyone at all, can be the murderer – the poor child, the sweet young miss, the charming major, the wise doctor, the silly old maid.” (Gill,