The “Trial Of Justice” In Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None

As a well-known British detective novelist in the twentieth century,Agatha Christie(1890-1976)tells a story about the mysterious man’s trial of outlaws on a deserted island in her masterpiece And Then There Were None.In the novel,everyone dies in the sequence and manner of a nursery rhyme.The novel presents Christie’s answer to the proposition of justice in physical,psychological,and social spaces: from city to deserted island,from recollections to soliloquy,and from opposition to deconstruction respectively.Based on Guo Fangyun’s theory of literary cartography,this thesis draws the corresponding trial maps at physical,narrative,and symbolic layers,exploring the construction of the space of justice in And Then There Were None.In this way,Christie’s critical thinking on social justice during the interwar period can be further revealed.The “trial of justice” is the core plot of the novel,which will be analyzed in this thesis in terms of a linear itinerary map,a spiral consciousness map,and an inverted society map.First,three spatial coordinates of the itinerary map involve invitation,train,and Soldier Island physically,indicating the trial route in the space of justice.The invitation lures the protagonists onto the path of their trial to Soldier Island.Then the protagonists achieve spatial mobility and establish social links by train.Soldier Island is the courtroom of the trial that takes their lives,symbolizing the end of the trial.Second,the spiral consciousness map consists of recollection,hallucination,and soliloquy narratively,presenting the narrative of truth in the space of justice.Christie reveals the protagonists’ hidden criminal secrets through recollections and hallucinations,and then uses Wargrave’s soliloquy to uncover the ultimate truth of the trial.Last,the inverted society map with subversive dichotomies includes three pairs of coordinates symbolically: “criminal—pursuer”,“male—female”,and “human—animal”.The pursuer Wargrave,who represents justice in the novel,spies on the criminals from a panoramic perspective and no longer passively pursues the criminal,while the criminal is forced to seek out the pursuer,which reflects Christie’s simple view of the primacy of good and evil.Christie places Vera at the end of the trial list and portrays her as a resourceful and courageous female criminal,thereby shattering gender prejudices.The animalistic depiction of characters in the novel is Christie’s satire on the hypocritical side of civilization.Even though the trial takes the form of vigilante justice,Christie’s response to the proposition of justice is with the judge’s self-execution.To reveal Christie’s serious thoughts on justice,this thesis takes the literary map as guidance to examine how the paradoxical “justice trial” unfolds.Therefore,this thesis is a revelation of the dangers of vigilante justice,a call for readers’ reflections on social justice and the nature of humanity,and also a tip of self-awareness.