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Character Analysis: And Then There Were None By Agatha Christie

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Another brilliantly crafted murder mystery novel by Agatha Christie - filled with anticipation, beautiful murders, and an original plot filled with a multitude of characters with diverse personalities. These said characters of And Then There Were None are all cold-hearted killers who carry their own form of guilt. However, unbeknownst to the reader, one character exacts a perverted form of justice upon the immoral injustices his victims committed. Throughout the novel, Justice Wargrave displays his ability to manipulate the other characters through intuition and meticulous planning to administer this justice. Since the very beginning of the novel, even the readers are fooled by Wargrave. In the first chapter, he introduces the lie about …show more content…

The other characters, oblivious to his involvement, view this as honesty or simply his judge-like personality. With his calculative and meticulous planning, he is able to steer attention away from his involvement in the murders like in chapter 10: “ ‘[ . . . ] and have established the fact that no one is completely exonerated from suspicion’ “(160). Wargrave is simply a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The murderers’ stories that are revealed in chapters 2, 3, 5, and 9 help the Judge gather more insight about the crimes themselves. By having intimate access to the other characters and the details of their lives after they committed murder, Wargrave can appropriately plan each death to reflect the severity of his victims’ crimes. He confesses in his manuscript to Scotland Yard “I was able to concoct a suitable bait for each. None of my plans miscarried”(292). In other words, he found relations between the murders and the general psyche of the victim’s mindframe. An example is the seaweed in Vera Claythorne’s room that reminded her of the “cold clammy touch”(230) of Cyril, or the smell of the ocean where she let a little boy drown in the depths of the freezing ocean. Wargrave placed the seaweed knowing that it would make Miss Claythorne’s buried guilt resurface and give her self-doubt and fear. In the last few pages of the book (before the epilogue) Vera says

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