The Witness of the Prosecution by Agatha Christie - Essay Example

"The Witness for the Prosecution" is an extremely popular play by Agatha Christie published between 1954 and 1955 called " Witness of the prosecution " in which Mr. Leonard Vole is accused of killing a rich old widow Miss Emily French who left her will on Mr. Vole's name, though he was not proven guilty by the jury indeed he was the murderer which can be concluded by reading the last conversation between Mrs. Leonard Vole and Mr. Leonard's lawyer who is Mr. Wilfrid since she knew her husband very well. Where there is money and wealth concerned no matter how much or how less one should be extremely careful to protect it.

In 'Witness of the Prosecution' from Act I of the play only we get an idea as to how smartly and cleverly Mr. Leonard Vole, the shrewd twenty-seven-year-old man misuses the trust of a rich old widow who is Miss Emily French to swindles her when Mr. Leonard Vole starts telling Mr. Mayhew (solicitor) and Mr. Wilfrid the lawyer about his interaction and relation with Miss Emily French giving readers a suspicious view about him. Firstly, it was wrong on Miss Emily French's part to boast about her wealth usually for no reason which gave a chance to Mr Vole to think about robbing and misusing her trust. "Sir Wilfrid: Had you reason to believe she was well off? Leonard: Well, she talked as though she was." (152) Had Miss French not boasted about her wealth in front of Mr. Vole the unfortunate case of her murder by Mr. Leonard wouldn't have happened.

Miss Emily French because of her unwiseness and lack of care about her wealth got fooled by this cunning man. This person was extremely frank about the fact that he was after Miss Emily's money when he said 'Yes, I know they'll say I was after her for her money. And in a way perhaps that's true. But only in the way." (153) It is so baffling that Miss Emily French never saw the real intentions of Mr Leonard despite being known as a smart woman. She should have thought twice before trusting such a wicked man and willing man such that she even made Leonard her heir which gave another reason to him of killing her. One common issue here is the false sense of security held by Miss French who had a lifetime revocable trust which does almost nothing to prevent the culprit from reaching her wealth in the name of trust.

Protecting one's wealth is the first thing one should do in today's time as this world is filled with extremely dangerous people who are ready to go to any extent to attain money even if it's by deceiving someone. Even in Act II of the play, we get to know through Janet Mackenzie who was Miss French's housekeeper how conveniently Miss French who was before a smart independent woman would let Mr Leonard Vole help her in her business affairs which is something very personal and strangers shall not be allowed to interfere in them but just because of her undying trust on him she let him interfere in them because of which she suffered. She says, "He'd sit there flattering her, telling her how young she looked and noticing any new clothes she was wearing." (165) which shows that one of the reasons why Miss Emily French blindly trusted this man was because she was falling for him.

We've often seen so many cases in the news where some unfortunate (in wealth) people marry those with fortunate ones to secure their future or fool people to get all the money, In this materialistic world, anyone can do anything for money. A similar case happened in this story too, a shrewd man made Emily think he was fond of her giving her a reason to fall for him, and when we love someone we are ready to do and everything for them which Miss French also did for Leonard as she was unaware of his fraud nature. Just as we don't pay more than the required amount of taxes as a regular rule, planning to protect our wealth and money from others to the extent permitted by law is an appropriate approach for everyone to take no matter how much we trust them.

Agatha Christie very well depicts in ''The Witness of the Prosecution" a story of how easily and smartly Mr Leonard Vole misused the trust and swindled Ms Emily French who was a rich woman. Miss Emily French who trusted a stranger blindly with her business affairs and made a stranger an heir to her will of eighty-five thousand pounds had to pay for the consequences and thus was murdered by that stranger. Had she been more careful with her money she wouldn't have faced this.
Miss Katharine Whitehorn quotes "The great rule is not to talk about money with people who have much more or much less than you'' Read More