The Stories in The Thirteen Problems - Essay Example

? AGATHA CHRISTIE Agatha Christie is one of the most prolific of all time. Unlikemany writers, her stories have a punch to it that no other has. These stories deal with a genre that only greats like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can deal with. Even though she wrote romance as well, but she was greatly applauded for her crime and detective stories. Her detective stories mainly had two major protagonists: Miss Marple and HerculePoirot. Both these characters were greatly popular and their popularity takes us back to the era of Sherlock Holmes. Her books have been so popular that only the Bible can beat that record. She was one of the shining stars of the few writers who did justice to detectives and introduced to the world a whole new perception and book reading. Over the years of her writing career, she grew as a writer. Her genre and characters dint change, but their procedures and other details certainly did. Agatha Christie managed to keep her books alive with time easily coping up with the changes in people’s thoughts and expectations. Her two books “The thirteen Problems” and “A Caribbean Mystery” are miles and years apart, but they both were distinct and popular in their own way. What made them so different, and yet so same? (Agatha Christie Biography). The detective stories by Agatha Christie have some unique elements. First, classical detective stories do not usually assume the possibility of occasional mistakes or the force of circumstances which can occasionally change the situation. Agatha Christie depicts real people who may easily make mistake or be influenced by something. However, she provides her detectives with such unique traits and ability to use so flexible logic that they are able to reveal even casual mistakes and circumstances, which prevent the police from revealing the truth. The next feature is the lack of description of bloody scenes of murder, Christie was against cruel scenes. The third important peculiarity is social atmosphere, which is similar for all the stories by Agatha Christie. First she introduces all the heroes to the reader and the murder happens afterwards (Judgement Book Reviews). The focal point of this paper will be Agatha’s stories that involved Miss Marple. She is one of the most important parts of Agatha’s novels. What made Miss Marple so popular? And how did the people come around to liking a woman in a role which was already defined by a man through Sherlock Holmes? Miss Marple was a usual old lady and for readers her appealing quality was how normal she actually was. Just because she solved mysteries and crimes did not make her a super hero. The fact that like every other old lady she was interested in the typical hobbies of knitting and gossiping made her believable and true. Agatha Christie managed to bring rationality into the character by making her old, had Miss Marple been young, she wouldn’t have had the experience to understand human nature as well as she did in order to solve mysteries. Miss Marple’s nature of gardening and living in the village made the readers realize with ease that this woman was just like everybody else. This made her quite easy to be accepted and loved by people. (Marple's Profile) “The Thirteen Problems” was a short story collection by Agatha Christie that revolved around Miss Marple’s detective abilities. It is about six friends who sit together and form a club where they share stories, more like they talk about mysterious deaths of people and try to conclude as to who might have done it. In this little game of theirs, Miss Marple outshines every one and this becomes the beginning of the character of Miss Marple as a rather eligible detective. The book basically revolves around thirteen different cases, hence the title of the book. Miss Marple’s introduction to the world and Agatha’s readers was through this very book. She got introduced as a woman, who was unwillingly invited to the Tuesday night club with her nephew’s friends to discuss unsolved murders. According to the first chapter of the book “The Tuesday Night Club”;“Miss Marple wore a black brocade dress, very much pinched around her waist…She had on black lace mittens and a black lace cap…” (page 1). The physical appearance and the dressing of Miss Marple made her sound extremely ordinary. She looked just like a normal aunt who liked to knit. Hence, the five others were rather hesitant in making her a part of the club. Joyce’s reactions of being “taken aback” (page 4) clearly stood for everyone’s feelings. (Christie, The Thirteen Problems) However, this book was formed with thirteen rather simple, yet unsolved mysteries. All of them were told by people, who in their own profession have a lot of digging to do. For example; her nephew Raymond, was a writer. Writers require the extra imagination, thus they are most likely to think out of the box. Sir Henry Clithering was a former commissioner of the Scotland Yard, which made him the strongest candidate of the game considering the fact that he had practically made a living out of solving mysteries. Ms Joyce Lempriere was an artist and artists always have an eye for things that usually people can’t see. The book clearly described how women, specially one like Miss Marple who is old and lives in a village can have a knack of solving mysteries. It made the readers realize how fantastic a sixth sense can be. The Thriteen Problems can be regarded as probably a novel that brought women to the forefront and Miss Marple somewhat became the representative. To cut to the tails, these short stories are extremely straight forward if one has to analyze them. However, the beauty of this book is the fact that simplicity in none of the stories takes its essence away from it. Naturally, when reading crime and murders, a person expects a lot of twists and turns, confusions and a lot of complications; even though there are some slight twists in all the thirteen problems but the reader won’t have problems in grasping the story. Rather it is still surprising how short stories of this nature can be equally captivating and interesting. There are some typical big mansion murders, some conspiracies related to money and power. However, there is some supernatural element present in the stories as well. Supernatural doesn’t necessarily mean zombies, vampires or ghosts; rather a more mature supernatural form of fiction. In Chapter seven “The Blue Geranium,” Mrs. Pritchard got convinced by a psychic woman that there was some evil in her house. This clearly explains the use of superstition which was a common thing in the times when Agatha Christie wrote this book. In “the Thirteen Problems” Agatha Christie managed to make a good name for her and from here on, her writing career saw a peak, while Miss Marple managed to bag a lot more mysteries and crime cases in many of Agatha’s books to come. On the other hand, a Caribbean Mystery is a book with just one case in it. Unlike the thirteen problems, this entire case is studied and solved in great detail. It uses a lot of fancy details to set the scene, situations and scenarios. This book came a lot later than The Thirteen Problems. Hence, there is a significant show of the evolution of Ms. Agatha Christie as a writer. She started to know the complications and incentives of murder. One thing remains common though in both books, and that is the use of poison. Ms. Agatha Christie had training as a Pharmacist and volunteered as a nurse in World War II, thus she knew well about such medications and the poison in them. (Agatha Christie Biography) A Caribbean Mystery is set in a Caribbean resort, where she is enjoying a rather exotic vacation. She comes in contact with a Major who tells her a story about a man whose first wife died in suspicious circumstances and how his second wife died as well. What interests Miss Marple is the fact that the major claimed to have a photograph of the killer. Just when he is about to reveal the picture, he notices someone in the crowd and quickly puts the picture away while changing the subject rather abruptly. The next day, news falls in that the Major died of asupposed heart attack. However, Miss Marple gets convinced that he was murdered. (Judgement Book Reviews; Christie, A Caribbean Mystery ) Miss Marple takes the matters in her own hands and starts with her own informal investigation. However, the murder mystery gets even more complicated when other murders follow as well. The story takes a rather curvy turn, when one of the suspects starts to show some signs of madness. Her detective skills take a hike and she ends up solving the case in a rather professional manner. (Judgement Book Reviews) This book was written in the 1960’s which means that it had a very long gap from “The thirteen problems.” A Caribbean mystery manages to highlight the cultural changes in the European and Afro-Caribbean ways. Agatha made it extremely clear that both cultures were nowhere near being equal, rather there was a lot of difference between them and rather obviously the European one being the superior of them both. The initial parts of the book showcase how the Afro-Caribbean people lack ethics, discipline etc., whereas European culture is lauded for its excellence and perfection. The clash of marriages and sacrifices are the highlights as well. All in all, the book manages to serve the global issue of racism as well, but not in the positive light. (Judgement Book Reviews) Both books were applauded for their uniqueness as well as similarity. From writing thirteen very short and simple murder stories to an entire book, where the murder mystery is ganged and blotched with more murders. The missing details in The Thirteen problems in no way do injustice to the book, rather its quality lies in its simplicity. While the great details offered in Caribbean Mystery don’t make it a drag or a boring book to read. It is surprising how Agatha Christie managed to address the same genre in two extremely different styles and still managed to capture the reader’s interest. Both books have literally managed to woo the audiences. Like Sherlock Holmes, Miss Jane Marple also managed to become a super hero. People started believing that she was true. Even though, Agatha hasn’t treated Miss Marple as an out of this world character, rather, she dint give it much attention as the people did. Both books have their own essence of crime, mystery and murder. Agatha managed to complicate her characters a little bit more than her previous work. Both books present a leap that she made as a writer. Her insight of crimes is different, but her motives are rather typical: love, jealousy, affair, fame, money, power etc. Agatha Christie is one of a kind, she can almost be described as a female version of Arthur Conan Doyle who made a female version of Sherlock Holmes. Works Cited Agatha Christie Biography 2014, biography.com, accessed January 8, 2014 at http://www.biography.com/people/agatha-christie-9247405; Christie, Agatha 2004, A Caribbean Mystery . S.l.: HarperCollins; Christie, Agatha 2000, The Thirteen Problems . New York : New American Library; Judgement Book Reviews 2010, judgementbookreviews.com, accessed January 8, 2014 at http://www.judgementbookreviews.com/2010/03/caribbean-mystery.html; Marple's Profile 2014, poirot.us, accessed January 12, 2014 at http://www.poirot.us/mprofile.php. Read More