And Then There Were None Guilt Analysis

And then There Were None

The novel And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie is about ten people who are invited to an island by a mysterious man by the name of Mr. Owens, and are killed off in the exact order of a poem about ten little soldiers. Each character has a horrible past that they want to forget and never remember. Every one of them has committed a crime; however, each of them reacts to guilt differently than others. They all have guilt from their past; some of the people’s guilt causes them to go crazy and some people’s guilt rarely affects their daily lives.

General Macarthur is not affected with guilt at the beginning of the book. However, at the time before he is killed, he has so much shame that he goes hysterical. He denies everything towards the accusation of

killing Arthur Richmond; he told the other people on the island that Arthur died in battle; it happens all the time. Macarthur did not tell anyone the real truth of how he killed Arthur, but still he is not concerned that Arthur was sent to his death by him. When no one is around he justifies to himself, “Yes he’d sent Richmond to his death and he wasn’t sorry” (76). At first, Macarthur did not mind Arthur; he was a good man and very nice, nevertheless Arthur came too close to Macarthur’s wife, and Macarthur was jealous. Therefore he sent Arthur to war deliberately, knowing he would be killed. The day General Macarthur is going to be killed, he is frenzied and frantic. Vera comes to the beach to find him. She finds him sitting by the water thinking to himself. Once, she approaches Macarthur he knows she is there, but he did not process it in his mind. Apparently just after Vera arrived, Macarthur starts talking to her, but he does not sound like his regular self, he sounds uneasy. He is rambling on how they are all going to die and how he feels disgraced being responsible for the death of Arthur. “I had no regrets. ‘Serves him damned well right!’ that’s what I thought afterwards-…I don’t know. It was all different you see” (117).As soon as, Macarthur sent Richmond to his death, he was not alarmed when someone informed him that Arthur was killed in action. Except now, Macarthur feels so ashamed; he does not know what to do with himself anymore. He faces the fact that everyone is going to die and there is nothing they can do about it.
Emily Brent takes her guilt in another direction, unlike General Macarthur. While Macarthur went crazy with his regret, Emily can hold herself together, even when she has guilt take over her body. She is an uptight, self-righteous woman, and does not accept young adults with no morals. So when she caused the death of Beatrice Taylor she has no worry and says to Vera, “Her own action-her own sin-that what drove her to it” (101). She believes that when Beatrice committed suicide that it was her own fault that made her throw herself in the water. But later in the book, Emily starts feeling regret because one time she is writing in her and writes “THE MURDERER’S NAME IS BEATRICE TAYLOR…” (158). The fact that she writes down this girl's name in her diary it proves that subconsciously no matter how she acted on the outside somewhere she still feels self-condemnation. So, while Emily acts self-righteous on the outside her guilt is always there, even how many times she denies it.
Phillip Lombard has always been in some kind of trouble, so when everyone learns about him killing twenty-one natives he does not deny the accusation.

He plainly says he killed them and left them to die with no food. “Story’s quite true! I left ‘em! Matter of self-preservation” (61). He is one of the only people that feel no blame resting on them. He does not take interest that he abandoned the natives to starve to death. Later in the book, one by one people are being killed, and everyone is too scared to move or to talk to anyone. They all think to themselves of who could be the murder, and turn on each other. Justice Wargrave is very keen and alert, but motionless. Ex-Inspector Blore has a beastly and ferocity looks on his face. Vera is very quiet, and Armstrong is twitching and scared. So while their personalities are thinning, Phillip Lombard’s are growing stronger by the minute. Agatha Christie describes him now as, “senses seemed heightened, rather than diminished” (192). Phillip has no remorse that would make him become fanatic. While everyone else is guilty of their past, and start to become animal-like, he is the same person he was before, just more alert and

focused.
Vera is the last person to be killed off, and she takes her guilt to a whole new level. Throughout the book her worry is always with her, it never leaves her. She cannot forget the past because the past will ever more trouble her for her whole life. She caused the death of Cyril Hamilton purposely allowing him to swim when she knew he would drown. The reason she did this is because she loved Hugo and Hugo would receive Cyril’s inheritance. But after Cyril died, Hugo stopped talking to her; it’s like he knew what she did. Vera is a girl that can remain calm, however when she arrives on the island her past comes back to haunt her. While she is at the island her guilt becomes bigger and bigger. And while her fault is becoming larger, she starts to become deranged. She begins to go insane and cannot think straight. When Mr. Rogers is murdered she starts yelling, “’Six little Indian boys playing with a hive. And that’s why I’m asking do they keep bees on this island?—isn’t it funny?—isn’t it damned funny…?’ She began laughing widely again.” The island changes her, it made her become insane and loose her mind. She is not thinking normally, and cannot handle her culpability anymore. Since she is the last person to be alive on the island (or so she thinks), she goes to take a nap. When she walks into her room, she sees a chair, rope and a hook on the ceiling. When she sees this she thinks to herself, “Hugo was there to see she did what she had to do. She kicked away the chair…” (245). Her past drove her to hang herself. She had so much guilt that it overcame her whole being. She could not handle the responsibility of her killing another human being, so she kills herself.
Agatha Christie portrays the human species at their worst of times; and the best place to show it is at an abandon island. At the island, they remembered their past and who they really are. All ten people reacts to guilt, some harsher than others, nevertheless they all appear to have guilt. Since each one murdered or was responsible for someone’s death, they had to live with the knowledge of their actions. Throughout their lives after their crime scene, some went back to being a normal person while others were afraid of their own shadow.