How Does Agatha Christie Create Suspense

Agatha Christie is a well known author who mainly writes mystery novels. The novel “And Then There were None” is a murder mystery set in England, ten strangers arrive at an island and over the course of a weekend, each and every one of them are murdered. In the book, Agatha Christie uses many different narrative techniques and literary devices to create suspense for the reader.

The first narrative technique that Agatha uses are interior monologues. An interior monologue shows what a character is thinking. This technique is extremely effective as all of our characters are very terrified and chaotic. Everyone in the novel is very uncertain about what is about to happen next, and we can this tell based on their thoughts displayed in the book. An example of an interior monologue is “one of us . . . one of us . . . one of us . . .” (pg. 91). This interior monologue shows us all of the uncertainty on the island. Everyone is aware that one of them is the murderer, but no one knows who. This causes some characters to go crazy, like vera, and turn their backs on others. Interior monologues are very powerful in the novel, and set the mood for the reader.

In our novel, Agatha Christie often compares our characters to animals. An example of this is when Philip Lombard is described as “quick as a panther”. This metaphor shows that Lombard is sly and sneaky, which could be used against him, as his revolver was hidden, and you would think it was him who hid it based on the metaphor. Also, our narrator described Justice Wargrave with a “tortise-like neck”. A tortise is often percieved as old and wise, which can also describe Wargrave. He is the oldest of our characters and is also a former judge, which shows he is wise and knows what is up. These are just a few examples of similes and metaphors in “And Then There Were None” that compare our characters to