Genre
Detective Fiction, Mystery
Setting and Context
Styles St. Mary, Essex, in the English countryside, in the midst of WWI.
Narrator and Point of View
Captain Arthur Hastings narrates, retrospectively, his time at Styles Manor during which the socialite Emily Inglethorp is murdered. Hastings is a wannabe detective who shadows veteran-celebrity detective Hercule Poirot as Poirot attempts to solve the confounding case.
Tone and Mood
The tone is inquisitive and surprisingly light for a story about a murder. Hastings is frequently in awe of Poirot while also feeling scorned and underappreciated by him. The mood is often humorous, while occasionally tense in moments of confusion, when, for example, a new clue is uncovered, or new evidence renders a previously established narrative implausible.
Protagonist and Antagonist
Hastings is the protagonist; the events are filtered through his perspective, and his the only character whose emotional journey we experience. Alfred Inglethorp is a consistent antagonist.
Major Conflict
The major conflict is that Emily Inglethorp was murdered by someone who lives at Styles Court, presumably for her fortune.
Climax
Alfred Inglethorp and Eve Howard are exposed as having worked together to kill Emily Inglethorp.
Foreshadowing
Emily says she feels like "a goose walked over [her] grave" (9) when Cynthia and Mary discuss murders by poisoning, which foreshadows her own death by poisoning a few weeks later.
Understatement
N/A
Allusions
Mary makes an allusion to Sherlock Holmes, a famous detective character created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Imagery
Christie focuses on idyllic, pastoral imagery of the English countryside. The novel is almost Romantic in its emphasis on natural imagery and rejection of the industrial.
Paradox
N/A
Parallelism
There are parallels between Emily and Alfred's marriage and John and Mary's. Both are beset by infidelity, and both marriages are for money. The difference is that Mary seems to actually love John, and she openly admitted from the beginning that she was marrying for money. Whereas, the opposite is true of Alfred; he never admits he married Emily for money, and he pretends to love her.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
N/A
Personification
Christie personifies the trees and the weather in Essex. At one point, she refers to the "shrewishness" of the wind and "mournful" noises made by the swaying trees (178).
