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    A Study Guide for Agatha Christie's "Murder on the Orient Express"
    A Study Guide for Agatha Christie's "Murder on the Orient Express"
    A Study Guide for Agatha Christie's "Murder on the Orient Express"
    Ebook47 pages50 minutes

    A Study Guide for Agatha Christie's "Murder on the Orient Express"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Agatha Christie's "Murder on the Orient Express," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateJun 27, 2016
    ISBN9781535829076
    A Study Guide for Agatha Christie's "Murder on the Orient Express"

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      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Agatha Christie's "Murder on the Orient Express" - Gale

      10

      Murder on the Orient Express

      Agatha Christie

      1934

      Introduction

      Although written somewhat early in a career that spanned almost six decades and over seventy novels, Murder on the Orient Express (1934; originally published in the United States as Murder in the Calais Coach) is still considered one of mystery writer Agatha Christie's greatest works. The book features her most enduring literary creation, the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, and one of the trademark twist endings for which Christie was famous.

      Murder on the Orient Express finds Poirot on his way back to England from Syria by way of the luxury rail transport known as the Orient Express. Along the way, a murder occurs in the very same passenger car in which Poirot is traveling, and the director of the rail line—a friend of the detective—asks Poirot to help solve the case. The more he investigates, the less the case seems to make sense, with the wide array of passengers—all from different backgrounds and seemingly strangers to each other—each providing a substantiated alibi for the night of the crime.

      Christie drew inspiration for the novel from several sources, most notably her own experiences aboard the Orient Express while traveling between England and her archeologist husband Max Mallowan's dig sites in the Middle East. Christie also modeled the back story that connects the characters on the real-life kidnapping and murder of the son of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh, which occurred just two years before the novel was published.

      Although the novel is best remembered for its cleverly constructed mystery, it also contains themes seldom touched upon in previous works of detective fiction. One of the most surprising elements of the book is Poirot's brilliantly indirect participation in covering up the truth about the murder, since Poirot himself seems to agree that the killing is ultimately an act of moral justice.

      Author Biography

      Christie was born Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller on September 15, 1890, in Torquay, England, the third child of Clarissa Miller, an English woman, and Frederick Miller, an American living in England. Her childhood was somewhat unusual, in that she did not attend formal school. However, the family home contained an abundance of books, and her pursuit of knowledge was always encouraged.

      Her father died when she was eleven, but her early years were shaped by another male influence: author Eden Philpotts, who lived nearby and fostered in the girl a love of literature. In 1914, she married Archibald Christie, a lieutenant in the Royal Flying Corps. In the midst of World War I, Christie worked as a nurse and even passed the required test to become a pharmacist. Her only child, daughter Rosalind, was born in 1919.

      Christie did not consider a career as a writer until she was challenged by her older sister to write a mystery in which the ending could not be guessed. That first novel, The

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