Murder on the Orient Express Essay Questions

How does the idea of a jury shape the plot of this novel?

The structure of a jury underlies the entire plot behind Ratchett's murder. Ratchett's killers are motivated by grief and fury at the real jury who refused to convict him. As a result, they decide to attack him as a group of twelve—the same number of people as there are in a jury. This means that he is stabbed twelve times, spreading responsibility for his death among twelve people, just as the responsibility for his earlier non-conviction was attributable to twelve jury members. This structure also influences the book's number of characters, since the train has only twelve passengers, plus Poirot. At the novel's end, Poirot makes use of the jury structure himself—though he drops the number 12 as an aspect of it—when he employs Bouc and Constantine as a makeshift jury to decide which of his theories is correct. Thus the concept of a jury not only has thematic resonance throughout the novel, but also structures its plot and characterization.

How is servitude represented in this novel?

This novel implicitly divides relationships of servitude into two types: those in which a servant's job is transactional, and those in which it is deeper and more emotionally motivated. Here, for instance, MacQueen has a thoroughly transactional relationship to Ratchett, and while he dutifully works for him as he is paid to do, he never truly devotes himself to his employer. In fact, he secretly plots against him throughout his term as a servant to Ratchett. However, a character like Masterman remains extremely loyal to his former employer even after that employer has died, and indeed devotes himself to avenging his employer's death. Thus, Christie hints, servants are inherently and ideally supposed to be loyal to their masters, but are excused from such an emotional commitment if they are employed by an undeserving person.

Several characters in this novel are compared to animals. What significance do these metaphors have?

In this novel, metaphors that compare individuals to animals hint at not only those characters' appearances and movements, but also at their underlying characteristics and inner lives. Ratchett, for instance, is compared to a dangerous wild animal in a cage—specifically, while his personality may be dangerous, it is constrained by the cage-like exterior of his harmless-looking body. This metaphor emphasizes Ratchett's dangerous personality, as well as his equally dangerous ability to appear harmless. Several passengers are compared to more domestic animals as well: Foscarelli to a cat, Princess Dragomiroff to a toad, and Greta Ohlsson to a sheep. These animals are all relatively harmless and live in close proximity to humans, sometimes even in their households as pets or farm animals. These metaphors imply a certain harmlessness in these three characters, and indeed despite their one violent act, all three appear fundamentally non-dangerous. Finally, Poirot himself is compared to a bird, especially in reference to his gaze. This hints that Poirot is able to mentally obtain distance and perspective on confusing situations, the same way a bird can, by flying, obtain physical distance from similar situations. Thus, each comparison made between an animal and a character in this book hints at that character's personality, intelligence, and orientation towards the world.

What is the narrative purpose served by Bouc and Constantine's constant presence?

Bouc and Constantine, while not always a great deal of help to Poirot, accompany him nearly everywhere as he works on the case at hand. Their role is to serve as stand-ins for the reader, controlling the speed and order with which Poirot relays information. Poirot is a character of unusual intelligence, which means that a buffer is required between his consciousness and the reader's in order to keep the reader from becoming overwhelmed. Moreover, these two characters' presence justifies Poirot explaining himself, his actions, his thought processes, and his conclusions. Thus, information that is only implied by the plot is laid out much more neatly and clearly in Poirot's dialogue with his two friends. Finally, the contrast between these two relatively ordinary characters and the brilliant Poirot only serves to highlight the detective's quick-wittedness.

Analyze the following quote in the context of Murder on the Orient Express: "All around us are people, of all classes, of all nationalities, of all ages. For three days these people, these strangers to one another, are brought together. They sleep and eat under one roof, they cannot get away from each other. At the end of three days they part, they go their several ways, never perhaps to see each other again.”

This quote, spoken by M. Bouc early in the novel, contains instances of foreshadowing, parallelism, and irony, intertwined in complex ways. On the one hand, Bouc is absolutely correct that the train contains a diverse group of people unable to escape one another. He does not yet know how inescapable the train will soon feel once embroiled in a murder investigation, but he understands nonetheless that its enclosed nature can warp and intensify dynamics between passengers. This observation also applies to the situation that unites all the train passengers—Daisy Armstrong's murder. This crime can be understood as a parallel to the situation Bouc describes, since it forced a group of people from many backgrounds and walks of life to come together under strange circumstances. Indeed, this is precisely how irony manifests in the above quote: while Bouc is entirely correct that an external situation has brought a group of strangers together, that situation is not the train itself. Rather, this crew of individuals has very intentionally come together, no longer as strangers but as allies. In this sense, Bouc and Poirot are the strangers among them, though they are both unaware of this at the time that this quote appears.