The Narrative Charm Of The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is a detective novel authored by Agatha Christie.Agatha is a British novelist as well as a playwright who has emerged as the "Queen of Detective Novels Worldwide".She has authored many pieces of art majoring mainly on detective stories.The Murder of Roger Ackroyd(1926)is the work that made Agatha Christie become famous.It is also her first novel to be adapted into a script,and the first work published by her with the identity of a writer,cooperated with publishers.Of all her novels,The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is one of her most well-known masterpieces.Except for some traditions of classic detective novels,this novel also develops the writing skills of detective novels.This paper is divided into five chapters.In the first chapter,the article provides a brief introduction of Agatha Christie’s life and pieces of work she has done in the field of detective literature.This section also provides a brief review of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and other related detective works from home and abroad.It is also through this section that the structure of the thesis is explained.The second chapter introduces in detail the charm of narrative order and unique plot construction,which could be defined as "double narrative progression" of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd,guided by the theory of "covert progression" proposed by Shen Dan,based on Genette’s narrative discourse theory as the frame.The unique plot structure contributes to retaining dramatic tension of the story to the maximum.The third chapter of this paper presents an analysis of the charm of using two kinds of focalization and an unreliable narrator in the novel.This chapter also focuses on how the narrator manages to accomplish "bounding unreliable narration" with the help of "unreliable narration" theory proposed by the American scholars Wayne Clayson Booth and James Phelan.The end of this chapter analyzes the unique inspiration of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd which helps in understanding the aesthetic enlightenment of detective novels by using "horizon of expectation" theory proposed by a German scholar Hans Robert Jauss.The fourth chapter of this thesis concentrates on how the author sets suspense in narrative words and how "reported speech" helps to set suspense skillfully in return.This mode of setting suspense is defined as narrative trick and then widely admitted and used in detective novels after The Murder of Roger Ackroyd,which apparently provides detective novel a brand-new development direction.Chapter Five presents a general conclusion of the research on the novel.