The Murder On The Orient Express

By :Nyia Chusan and Haley Haverson

Lovelorn(adj.)-Being without love forsaken by ones

lover. Hymeneal(adj.)-Of or pertaining to marriage Par(noun)-A level of equality Pretenses(noun)-A false show of something Pother(noun)-Commotion Expenditure(noun)-The act of expending something

especially funds; disbursement; consumption Metaphysics(noun)-Philosophy, especially in it more

abstruse branches

Vocabulary

Ab Initio (adv.)-From the beginning from the

start Deus ex machina(phrase)-Latin for “god out of

the machine” Indignant(noun)-Anger aroused by something

unjust, mean , or unworthy

Vocabulary Continued

1) The reader must have an opportunity to solve the

mystery along with the detective. The reader must also be able to clearly know what the clues are.

2) Whatever confusion or deception that is placed on the detective must also be placed on the reader. No other deceiving facts should be inflicted on the reader.

3) Never involve a love interest for the detective. If you have a love interest in the story it can take the interest off of the mystery and turn it into a romance.

Van Dine’s 20 rules (our version)

4) Never make the detective or investigator the criminal at hand. This is not fair to the reader.5) Explain who the culprit is with logical reasons. 6) The detective must analyze the clues to solve the case. He can not come up with a resolutions with “text book answers”. He must solve the case.7) There should always be a dead person(s). It takes up too much time if there is no murder in the mystery.

Van Dine’s 20 rules (cont.)

8) The cause of the crime must be solved or committed by natural causes. It should never be solved by supernatural causes or anything of that sort.9) There must always be one detective to solve the case and never any others.10) The culprit of the story must always be more or less known than the detective and the reader must ne familiar with him/her.11)The culprit must be someone who is not suspected.

Van Dine’s 20 rules (cont.)

12) There can only be one culprit , but there can also be a co-plotter.13) There must be no secret societies.14) The method of the murder must be rational and realistic.15) The truth of the problem must be hinted but not clearly stated.16) There should be no over analyzed passages or tedious scenes in the text.

Van Dine’s 20 Rules(cont.)

17) The criminal should never feel guilt or regret for what he/she has previously done.18) The crime should always be deliberately executed. 19) The criminal should be emotionally connected to the crime.20) There are 10 other “devices” that an author of a mystery novel should never use. (a)The author must compare or relate evidence to a suspect. (b) There should never be supernaturallistic séances included in the novel to frighten the culprit. (c ) Never use forged fingerprints.(d) Never create a culprit that doesn’t exist. (e) The dog that doesn’t bark which indicates that the culprit is familiar. (f) When the detective pegs the crime on innocent twin of the culprit. (g) using a drug to knock out the victim or to kill him/her. (h) The charge of the murder in a locked room after the police have broken in. (i) A test of guilt. (j) A coded letter that is later deciphered by the sleuth.

Van Dine’s 20 rules(cont.)

“The Classic List of Rules for the Detective Story’“1. The reader just have equal opportunity with the detective for solving the mystery. All clues must be plainly stated and described.”Explanation:Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express fits Van Dine’s first rule because in the novel, the reader can always detect what the clue is. Rule #1 is basically saying that the reader must have an equal opportunity to solve the mystery and that nothing is handed to them. Agatha uses many examples of foreshadowing to make it much more difficult for the reader to determine the outcome of the crime.Murder on the Orient Express:“The conductor looked over his shoulder. At the same moment a voice fro within the next compartment called out: ‘Ce n’est rien. Je me suis trompe’’”(Christie 32)

Rule #1

“The Classic List of Rules for the Detective Story”“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 in far too much pother for a crime other than murder. After all, the reader’s trouble and expenditure of energy must be rewarded.”Explanation:The novel depicted this rule dead-on. Simply saying, Rule #7 states that a murder novel should always have a dead corpse in it, it is a waste of time otherwise. In the novel there Mr. Ratchett is murdered, and his murder is the base of the whole entire novel. Without it there would not be a plot, just a short story. The murder makes the novel interesting, and the detective needs a murder to investigate, or else it wouldn’t be a mystery novel.Murder On The Orient Express:“There was a murder on the train last night, and the murderer was right there in my compartment!”(Christie 87)

Rule #7

“The Classic List Of Rules for the Detective story”:“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 one pair of shoulders: entire indignation of the reader must be permitted to concentrate on a single black nature.”Explanation:One instance when Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express does not fit Van Dine’s formula for a detective story is Rule # 12. Rule # 12 states in a detective story, there must only be one culprit or murderer. The novel Murder on the Orient Express opposes this rule by having 12 murderers or culprits, for the murder of Mr. Ratchett. All 12 passengers participate in the murder of Mr. Ratchett by stabbing him one time.Murder on the Orient Express:“I visualized a self-appointed jury of twelve people who had condemned him to death and who by the exigencies of the case had themselves been forced to be his executioners”(Christie 239).

Rule # 12

“The Classic List of Rules for the Detective Story”“Secret societies, camorras, mafias, et al., have no place in a detective story. A fascinating and truly beautiful murder is irremediably spoiled by any such wholesale culpability. To be sure, the murderer in a detective novel should be given a sporting chance; but it is going too far to grant him a secret society to fall back on. No high-class, self-respecting murderer would want such odds.Explanation:Christie’s novel, Murder on the Orient Express does not fit this rule. The text does not fit this rule because Mr. Ratchett (a.k.a Cassetti) was part of mob. Actually, he was the leader of a mob. Rule #13 states that there should be no secret societies of any kind involved in a murder story because it spoils the story. It is such a cliché to place a mob in any part of a novel, past, present, or future. So, by Ratchett previously being involved in a mob, Christie did not commit to Van Dine’s rule.Murder on the Orient Express:“”Ratchett’ as you suspected, was merely an alias. The man ‘Ratchett’ was Cassetti, who ran the celebrated kidnapping stunts-including the famous affair of little Daisy Armstrong”(Christie 76).

Rule #13

“The Classic List of Rules of the Detective Story”“16. A detective novel should contain no long descriptive passages, do literary dallying with side-issues, no subtly worked-out character analyses, no “atmospheric” preoccupations. Such matters have no vital place in a record of crime and deduction. They hold up the action and introduce issues irrelevant to the main purpose, which is to state a problem, analyze it, and bring it to a successful conclusion. To be sure, there must be a sufficient descriptiveness and character delineation to give the novel verisimilitude.”Explanation:Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express does not fit this rule. Rule #16 in Van Dine’s “Twenty rules for writing detective stories” states that there should be no over analyzed texts or tedious passages in a detective novel. There are many of these in Christie’s novel. When Poirot, M. Bouc, and Dr. Constantine are breaking down the evidence to decipher the murder the spend much time on little issues or instances, and it is obvious that those issues are either not at all evident to the crime or are made up. This quote said by M. Bouc is a perfect example of this.

Rule #16

Murder on the Orient Express:“The next question has, at any rate, possibilities. Who was the man or the woman masquerading in Wagon Lit uniform? Well, one can list with certainty a number of people that it could not have been. Hardman, Colonel Arbuthnot, Foscarelli, Count Andrenyi, and Hector MacQueen are all to tall. Mrs. Hubbard, Hildegarde Schmidt, and Greta Ohlsson are too broad. That leaves the valet, Miss Debenham, Princess Dragomiroff and Countess Andrenyi-and none of them sounds likely! Greta Ohlsson in one case, and Antonio Foscarelli in the other, both swear that Miss Debenham and the valet never left their compartments. Hildegarde Schmidt swears that the Princess was in hers, and Count Andrenyi has told us that his wife took a sleeping draught. Therefore it seems impossible that it can be anybody-which is absurd” (Christie 191)!

Rule #16 (cont.)

In order for Christie’s novel Murder on the Orient Express to fit Van Dine's pattern of detective stories, The novel must portray every single rule. Murder on the Orient Express does follow some of Van Dine’s rules of a detective story, but the novel does not follow all of them. In the novel there are twelve culprits, but rule #7 states there can only be one main culprit, and one helper or co-plotter. Another example of how the novel doesn’t portray the rules of a detective story, is rule #13. This rule states that there should be no secret societies. In the novel it explains how Ratchett was once in the mafia, and killed a child for a ransom. The examples from the book given for Van Dine’s rules either support the rules completely or are opposing the rules.

Summary

Christie, Agatha. Murder on the Orient Express. Toronto: Bantam, 1983. Print. Van Dine, S.S. "Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories." American Magazine Sept. 1928: 1-2. Web.

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