“From now on, it is our task to suspect each and every one amongst us.” In Agatha Christie’s, And Then There Were None, ten unsuspecting individuals are invited to Soldier Island by the anonymous U.N. Owens. Not long after arriving, the characters have learned two things, everyone is guilty of murder, and someone there has already died. Throughout the story, one of the island visitors Vera Claythorne reveals herself to be not just a virtuous girl, but a hysterical, genuine murderer. At first glance, Vera Claythorne is an impressionable young woman. Her epitaph portrays, “Her heart was as big as the ocean.” Vera’s life on and off of Soldier island is very different. Off of the island, she was an ex-games mistress and caretaker to her lover Hugo’s …show more content…
Claythorne isn’t the lighthearted girl she perceives to be. Sure she is generous and loyal, but not with the right motives. Over time, Vera admits to purposely drowning Hugo’s nephew Cyril, so that Hugo will get an inheritance over him. She wants Hugo to have this inheritance so that he will have the money to marry and provide for her. Here she is displaying her undeniable loyalty to Hugo, but at the expense of another’s life. Vera speaks that, “She’d pretend to swim out after him. But she’d arrive too late… no one would ever expect it.” She even goes as far as to say, “That’s what the murder was, as easy as that!” At the end of the story, Vera hysterically hangs herself on a noose. It can be presupposed that she does this out of guilt for murdering Cyril, but the truth is that she feels guilty for losing Hugo instead. That is what can prove Claythorne's true epitaph, “Guilt leads to the grave.” A noose symbolizes how Vera’s delirious decisions ultimately did not benefit her at all, furthermore causing her death. The bottom line is, although her traits are not desirable, they are what truly exists within