REGAN KEEN AND SEIMI PARK

Murder on the Orient Express Analysis Project

VocabularyConcocter (noun)-someone who devises or

makes up somethingHymeneal (adj.)-of or pertaining to marriageExpenditure (noun)-the act of expending

something especially funds, consumptionLatter (adj.)-situated or occurring nearer to

the end of the something than to the beginning

Pother (noun)-a commotion

Vocabulary (Cont…)Verisimilitude (noun)-the appearance of truth,

probabilityTaboo- (adj) proscribed by society as improper or

unacceptable.Camorras- (noun) secret society, or any similar

society or group.Irremediable- (adj) not admitting of remedy, cure,

or repair.Speculative- (adj) pertaining to, of the nature of,

or characterized by abstract reasoning. Theoretical , rather than practical.

Vocabulary (Cont…)Cavorting- (verb) to prance or caper about, to

behave in a high-spirited, festive manner,Dallying- (verb) to waste time, loiter, delay. To

act in a playful, amorous, or flirtatious way.Delineation- (noun) a description, chart, or

diagram, sketch, or rough draft.

Van Dine’s 20 Rules for Writing Detective Stories

1. All clues must be plainly stated.2. No tricks can be played on the reader except

what the criminal did in the crime.3. There must be no love interest.4. The detective can never turn out to be the

criminal.5. The culprit must be determined by clues, not

by coincidence.6. A detective novel must have a detective who

detects. The detective must analyze the clues.

Van Dine’s 20 Rules for Writing Detective Stories (Cont…)

7. A murder of some kind must occur.8. You (the detective) can’t use any spiritual devices to solve the crime.9. There must only be one detective.10. The culprit or criminal must be someone that has had a prominent (more or less) part in the story.11. The culprit must be a worthy person-one who wouldn’t typically come under suspicion.12. There can only be one culprit (there may be minor helpers & co-plotters) but it must fall on one person’s shoulders.

Van Dine’s 20 Rules for Writing Detective Stories (Cont…)

13. Secret societies and mafias should not be present in a murder.14. The method of murder & the way they detect it must be realistic.15. The clues and the truth of the problem must be apparent at all times. All clues must point to the culprit.16. No sidetracking.17. A professional criminal should never be the murderer in a crime.18. The crime cannot be an accident or suicide.19. The motives for all crimes should be personal.

Van Dine’s 20 Rules for Writing Detective Stories (Cont…)

20. The author may not use A.) Determining the identity of the criminal by the brand of cigarettes. B.) the fake spiritual séance to scare the criminal into telling the truth. C.) forged fingerprints D.) Dummy-figure alibis E.) The dog that doesn’t bark shows that the intruder is familiar. F.) the criminal being a twin or a look-alike. G.) the syringe or knock-out drops. H.) the murder in a locked room after the police have broken in. I.) the word association test for guilt. J.) the code letter that is eventually unraveled by the sleuth.

Rule 1"The Classic List of Rules for the

Detective Story""1. The reader must have equal opportunity

with the detective for solving the mystery.  All clues must be plainly stated and described" (Van Dine).

Rule 1 (Cont…)Explanation:

For an ideal detective story, all rules must be clearly stated, in a manner that is understandable to the reader.  It could be debated that Murder on the Orient Express has a conflicting viewpoint on this rule. Agatha Christie is a frequent user of stereotypes and excessive clues. Christie uses these ideas to "bounce off" the suspicion to other characters in the novel. Also, it's hard to know which clues will be helpful and which clues will be worthless information.  She also uses stereotypes against sex and race to change our idea of who the culprit is.  Even with the use of numerous clues and fake stereotypes, Christie manages to tie the story together at the end.

Rule 1 (cont…)Murder on the Orient Express:"I doubt if Princess Dragomiroff would have the

strength to inflict that left-handed blow" (Christie 193).

Rule 12“The Classic List of Rules for the Detective

Story”“12. There must be but one culprit, no matter

how many murders are committed. The culprit may, of course, have a minor helper or co-plotter; but the entire onus must rest on one pair of shoulders: the entire indignation of the reader must be permitted to concentrate on a single black nature.” (Van Dine).

Rule 12 (cont…)Explanation:

At the end of the novel, Murder on the Orient Express, Poirot started making the connections. Each member on the train was somehow linked to Daisy or the Armstrong household. In the end, we discovered that there was twelve culprits. On Van Dine’s list, it states under Rule #12 that there can be only one culprit. Poirot decides to tell the police that the one criminal escaped the train before it stopped and got away, however that is not what really happened. This defies the list of rules, and the “blame”, or onus, was not placed on any one in particular.

Rule 12 (cont…)Murder on the Orient Express:“They were all in it. For so many people

connected with the Armstrong case to be travelling by the same train through coincidence was not only unlikely: it was impossible. It must be not chance, but design. I remembered a remark of Colonel Arbuthnot’s about trial by jury. A jury is composed of twelve people—there were twelve passengers—Ratchett was stabbed twelve times.” (Christie 239).

Rule 17“The Classic List of Rules for the Detective Story”“17. A professional criminal must never be shouldered with the guilt of a crime in a detective story. Crimes by housebreakers and bandits are the province of the police departments-not of authors and brilliant amateur detectives. A really fascinating crime is one committed by a pillar of church, or a spinster noted for her charities” (Van Dine).

Rule 17 (Cont…) Explanation: The murderer of a detective story should usually be the most unexpected person.  As said in Rule #17,  the murderers of Ratchett were not people you would typically expect to be murderers.  In fact, most of them were common people that take part in our everyday lives.  The murderers included, but were not limited to, a governess, a secretary, a nurse, and a business man.  If there was a huge strong man on the train and he was the murderer, the story wouldn’t be as exciting and shocking.

Rule 17 (Cont…)Murder on the Orient Express:“Colonel Arbuthnot talked of the Punjab and occasionally asked the girl a few questions about Baghdad where, it became clear, she had been in a post as governess” (Christie 8).

Rule 19“The Classic List of Rules for the Detective Story”“19. The motives for all crimes in detective stories should be personal. International plottings and war politics belong in a different category of fiction — in secret-service tales, for instance. But a murder story must be kept gemütlich, so to speak. It must reflect the reader's everyday experiences, and give him a certain outlet for his own repressed desires and emotions” (Van Dine).

Rule 19 (Cont…)Explanation: In Murder on the Orient Express, the reasons for Ratchett’s murder were strictly personal. Corresponding to Rule #19, each of Ratchett’s murderers had an exclusive hatred towards him. Ratchett was involved in a gang that kidnapped and murdered Daisy Armstrong, also leading to the death of her entire family. Each of Ratchett’s murderers had a connection to Daisy Armstrong, and in a way, they were all victims of Daisy’s case. They decided to murder Ratchett, as a form of justice and revenge.

Rule 19 (Cont…)Murder on the Orient Express:“I would have stabbed that man twelve times willingly. It wasn’t only that he was responsible for my daughter’s death and her child’s and that of the other child who might have been alive and happy now” (Christie 245).

Rule 20“The Classic List of Rules for the Detective Story” “20. And (to give my Credo an even score of items) I herewith list a few of the devices which no self-respecting detective story writer will now avail himself of. They have been employed too often, and are familiar to all true lovers of literary crime. To use them is a confession of the author's ineptitude and lack of originality. (a) Determining the identity of the culprit by comparing the butt of a cigarette left at the scene of the crime with the brand smoked by a suspect. (b) The bogus spiritualistic se'ance to frighten the culprit into giving himself away. (c) Forged fingerprints. (d) The dummy-figure alibi. (e) The dog that does not bark and thereby reveals the fact that the intruder is familiar. (f)The final pinning of the crime on a twin, or a relative who looks exactly like the suspected, but innocent, person. (g) The hypodermic syringe and the knockout drops. (h) The commission of the murder in a locked room after the police have actually broken in. (i) The word association test for guilt. (j) The cipher, or code letter, which is eventually unraveled by the sleuth” (Van Dine).

Rule 20 (Cont…)Explanation:Although Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express seems like it’d be the perfect fit for Van Dine’s list, there were a few places where she strayed. One of the examples would be Rule #20. The rule states that an author should never write about framing the culprit with the butt of a cigarette found at the crime scene and comparing it to the brand smoked by the suspect. Christie didn’t do exactly this, but Poirot did link Colonel Arbuthnot to the crime scene by the brand of pipe-cleaners he used and the one left on the scene. This shows that Christie did indeed violate one of the rules on Van Dine’s list.

Rule 20 (Cont…)Murder on the Orient Express: “Colonel Arbuthnot smokes a pipe,” he said. “In

the compartment of Mr. Ratchett I found a pipe-cleaner. Mr. Ratchett smoked only cigars.”(Christie 121).

Summary of AnalysisMurder on the Orient Express does not agree with Van Dine's Rules for

Writing Detective Stories.  The first and foremost rule in Van Dine's list states that the author must clearly state all facts.  Although Agatha Christie does use some well-written facts, many of the information deals with stereotypes and fake clues.  Therefore, it's hard to depict which information is true, and which is false.  From Christie's viewpoint, it might have been to make the victim more unexpected, but for Van Dine, this was Christie's first error.  Secondly, Van Dine believed that there should always be one sole murderer.  In Murder on the Orient Express, there were a total of twelve victims.  The usage of multiple victims can make the story confusing for some people.  Lastly, Van Dine's article states that the culprit can not be framed using numerous unoriginal techniques.  One technique that Van Dine strictly prohibited was the usage of cigarette brands, which Christie uses to detect Colonel Arbuthnot's part in the crime.  Due to Christie's disagreement to the three most important rules, we believe that Murder on the Orient Express is not in agreement to Van Dine's Rules.

Works CitedChristie, Agatha. Murder on the Orient Express.

Toronto: Bantam, 1983. Print.Van Dine, S.S. ""Twenty Rules for Writing

Detective Stories"" American Magazine Sept.   1928: n. pag. Web.