Murder on the Orient Express Analysis Project

1. Murder on the Orient Express Analysis Project By: Domenic Spagnolo & Billy Goldstein

2. Vocabulary • 1. Metaphysics (n)- a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world. • 2. Onus (n)- a difficult or disagreeable responsibility or necessity; a burden or obligation. • 3. Indignation (n)- anger aroused by something unjust, mean, or unworthy. • 4. Hymeneal (adj)- of or relating to a wedding or marriage. • 5. Expenditure (n)- the act of expend; to use up or consume.

3. Vocabulary Cont. • 6. Irremediably (adj)- In a manner, or to a degree, that precludes remedy, cure, or correction; in an irremediable way. • 7. Cavorting (v)- To have lively or boisterous fun; romp. • 8. Dallying (v)- To act or move slowly. • 9. Delineation (n)- To trace the outline of. • 10. Verisimilitude (n)- The appearance of truth or reality; probability.

4. Van dine’s rules • 1. All clues must be plainly stated and not hidden from the reader. • 2. Don’t try to deliberately trick the reader so he/she could never figure out the crime. • 3. It’s not about love; it’s about a crime and figuring it out. • 4. The detective cannot be the criminal. • 5. The reader must use logical deduction to solve the crime without trickery or deception of clues.

5. Van dine’s rules cont. • 6. The detective in the story must be an active detective and work toward solving the crime. • 7. There must be a dead person, not a fake. • 8. The crime must be solved by realistic methods; not by “magical” means/methods. • 9. There can only one main detective. • 10. The criminal must be a main, active character.

6. Van dine’s rules cont. • 11. The criminal must not be a servant or too obvious of a person of suspicion. • 12. Only one criminal regardless of the number of crimes committed. • 13. There should be no secret “accomplices” to aid the murderer. • 14. The method of murder should be realistic. • 15. The story must be realistic and able to be solved with some thought no trickery. It should not be impossible to solve.

7. Van dine’s rules cont. • 16. The story should not be overly descriptive in order to deceive. Details should be relevant. • 17. The criminal should not be a professional; just an ordinary type of person. • 18. The murder was not an accident or suicide. • 19. The motive for murder should not involve “outside” reasons. It should be personal. • 20. The detective story should be original not be “typical” or too easy to solve.

8. Rule #6 • “Twenty rules for writing detective stories” • “6. The detective novel must have a detective in it; and a detective is not a detective unless he detects. His function is to gather clues that will eventually lead to the person who did the dirty work in the first chapter; and if the detective does not reach his conclusion through an analysis of those clues, he has no more solved his problem than the schoolboy who gets his answer out of the back of the arithmetic” (Van Dine). • Explanation: • The Murder on the Orient Express fits Rule #6 of Van Dine’s guidelines of a detective story because HerculePoirot was a well known detective with a good reputation. He was an active detective who investigated the murder of Ratchett. He conducted many interviews with the passengers on the train. He thinks into the clues and facts that he has collected. Poirot sees details of clues that M. Bouc and Dr. Constantine do not see. He closely analyzes the information that is collected in the investigation to come up with his solution to the murder. Poirot will not stop until he has come up with the correct solution to the crime. • Citation: • “Come, my friend,” said M. Bouc. “You comprehend what I am about to ask you.....I know your reputation. I know something of your methods” (Christie 42). Poirot goes into great detail summarizing the facts and missing information that he has discovered so far (Christie 148).

9. Rule #7 • “Twenty rules for writing detective stories” • “7. There simply must be a corpse in a detective novel, and the deader the corpse the better. No lesser crime than murder will suffice. Three hundred pages is far too much pother for a crime other than a murder. After all, the reader’s trouble and expenditure of energy must be rewarded” (Van Dine). • Explanation: • The Murder on the Orient Express definitely fits Rule #7 of Van Dine’s guidelines of a detective story because the victim in this story was clearly dead when Dr. Constantine examined body. Dr. Constantine confirmed that Ratchett was stabbed twelve times. The novel indicates there were rust colored stains on his pajamas which can be inferred as blood. • Citation: • “Ratchett lay on his back. His pyjama jacket, stained with rusty patches..... Someone must have stood there and stabbed him again and again” (Christie 54).

10. Rule #12 • “Twenty rules for writing detective stories” • “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 the one pair of shoulders: the entire indignation of the reader must be permitted to concentrate on a single black nature” (Van Dine). • Explanation: • The Murder on the Orient Express does not fit Rule #12 of Van Dine’s guidelines of a detective story. Agatha Christie put thirteen criminals and twelve actual murderers in the story. Each of the twelve stabbed Ratchett one time. • Citation: • “And then, messieurs, I saw a light. They were all in it..... a jury is composed of 12 people..... Ratchett was stabbed 12 times” (Christie 238).

11. Rule #18 • “Twenty rules for writing detective stories” • “18. A crime in a detective story must never turn out to be an accident or a suicide. To end and odyssey of sleuthing with such an anticlimax is to hoodwink the trusting and kind-hearted reader” (Van Dine). • Explanation: • The Murder on the Orient Express does follow rule 18. The crime in the novel was not an accident or a suicide. The outcome of the book was that 12 different people stabbed Ratchett once each. This was murder, which was planned and not an accident. The reader was not mislead to believe the whole book that Ratchett stabbed himself 12 times because that is not physically possible when several of the knife wounds would have been life-taking, if the stab before it did not take Ratchett’s life. • Citation: • “It was not suicide - eh?” The Greek doctor gave a sardonic laugh. “Does a man who commits suicide stab himself in ten-twelve-fifteen places?” (Christie 41).

12. Rule #19 • “Twenty rules for writing detective stories” • “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). • Explanation: • An example of Rule 19 of “Twenty Rules for Detective Stories” is The Murder on the Orient Express. Of the thirteen passengers on the train who were considered suspects, 12 of them stabbed Ratchett. All thirteen were connected to the Armstrong family. They all had a personal motive against Ratchett. International plottings and war politics were not involved in The Murder on the Orient Express. • Citation: • “That the not was destroyed so carefully can mean only one thing. There must be on the train someone so intimately connected with the Armstrong family.....” (Christie 201).

13. Works Cited • Christie, Agatha. Murder on the Orient Express. Toronto: Bantam, 1983. Print. • Van Dine, S. S. "Twenty Rule for Writing Detective Stories." American Magazine Sept. 1928: n. pag. Print.