Sleuthing from the Margins: Agatha Christie’s Marple and Poirot as the Detecting Other
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3986/pkn.v47.i3.06Keywords:
English literature, detective novel, Christie, Agatha, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, marginalization, the OtherAbstract
Despite their central position in the canon of detective fiction, Agatha Christie’s most famous characters, Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, occupy an ex-centric position in their respective fictional worlds. Both sleuths can be interpreted as marginalized Others and as such challenge the normative assumptions of the society in which they live. Miss Marple’s marginalization is primarily reflected in her gender, her amateur detective work, and her marital status, while Poirot’s Otherness is implied by his foreignness, his effeminacy and his neurodivergence. Both characters can also be interpreted as asexual and analyzed as straight-passing queers. This article explores how Christie uses her detectives’ status as Other to gently challenge the era’s dominant ideas about authority, sexuality, gender and morality. The analysis focuses primarily on the works The Murder at the Vicarage, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, “The Double Clue” and Hallowe’en Party and their film and television adaptations to examine both the textual and subtextual instances of marginalization, and the various attempts to keep the Other within the confines of normative identity.
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