Discuss the role of the poem Ten Little Soldiers in Agatha Christie's novel And Then There Were
None. Why does the murderer choose to follow the poem so closely? What effect
does this have on the characters?
Will you go insane if trapped on an
island with nobody to rescue you? What if a secret murderer is hiding on the
very island with you? Agatha Christie’s And
Then There Were None takes place on Soldier Island of the coast of Devon in
England. The background is around 1950 to 1960. In the novel, the murderer
Judge Wargrave closely follows a poem, Ten
Little Soldier Boys. He does this to strike unnatural fear into the rest of
the houseguests. Wargrave’s main goal is to make the other guests suspicious of
each other. At the same time, he tries to direct attention away from himself.
Unlike most other murder mysteries, Wargrave practically drops no clues that he
is U. N. Owen. His victims each die in a very specific way as stated by the
poem. Through the story, caution between guests increases little by little each
time death claims another victim. Due to Wargrave’s strict following of the
poem and stealth, many guests are terrified of what will happen next, and some
even go mad.
Wargrave follows the poem in his
murders so strictly to strike mortal fear and suspicion between his fellow
guests. An example of the suspicion he strikes is while Lombard scales the
cliff, looking for hiding spots, “But habit wouldn’t make him bring the whole
outfit down here! It’s only in books people carry revolvers around as a matter
of course” (Amplify 8, Line 194). This quote is aforementioned by Blore to
Armstrong privately. Blore gets increasingly suspicious of Lombard due to his
revolver which was brought along to Soldier Island. He feels that bringing a
revolver to a pleasant social visit is unnecessary and peculiar. A way to
explain this quote is Blore doesn’t know who the murderer is, but would
desperately like to know. Due to his lack of understanding of U.N.Owen’s
plotting and coming up with a perfect place and time for murder, Blore starts
to mistrust the most likely of suspects. At this point in the story, the
remaining guests all feel a strong need to either escape from Soldier Island or
find out who the murderer is. Another example of the trepidation and mistrust
that Wargrave implements into the story is when the house is thoroughly
searched with no adequate results, “Look here—not to mince matters—you didn’t
give her an overdose, did you?” (Amplify 9, Line 24). This quote is also
expressed by Blore. Moments before, Blore had confronted Armstrong with a
brick-red face (a very agitated expression). The two men engage in a heated
argument but are stopped by Lombard who claims that they are all in the same
boat. As with Lombard when he descended the island’s sheer cliff, Blore suspects
Armstrong is the murderer. Blore remembers the events from the night before,
and assumes that the doctor poisoned both Anthony Marston and Ethel Rogers.
After all, Armstrong carried all his equipment to the island whilst traveling.
It is reasonable to suspect that Armstrong takes a strong dose of medicine
along with him. This is another situation caused by U.N.Owen’s tight pursuit to
follow the poem in his crimes. Last but not least, the fear caused by the
plight the guests suffered caused Vera Claythorne to gradually get convinced
that Armstong was U.N.Owen. She let out her ideas to Lombard in an outburst,
“If a doctor went mad, it would be a long time before any one suspected. And
doctors overwork and have a lot of strain” (Amplify 10, Line 46). Claythorne
was similar to all of her fellow guests, but it was the fear of death that
caused her to believe that the murderer was Armstrong. As the story goes, she
would stay that way until finding the body of Armstrong with Lombard.
Claythorne is very afraid of death and her guilt of murdering Cyril Hamilton
weighs her down. She is also constantly dragged down with hallucinations and
fear. Unlike some of the other men, fear is one of her biggest flaws. It leads
her to suspect other people, instead of collaborating in a team effort to find
who the murderer is. To sum up, Wargrave was able to deploy the poem and deaths
in order to strike fear and suspicion into the fellow guests.
As a result of U.N.Owen’s uniformity
with the soldier boy poem, all of the people seem to become increasingly
cautious. One example of the increasing cautiousness of the remaining visitors
is when Blore, Armstrong, and Lombard hear a furtive footfall as they are about
to inspect the upper floor, “Armstrong grasped Blore’s arm. Lombard held up an
admonitory finger” (Amplify 8, Line 214). As the three intrepid men embark on
the last part of their search, they discover somebody sneaking around in the
servant’s room. They take detailed precautions before sneaking up the stairs
and barging into “U.N.Owen’s” hiding spot. To their dismay, they find a dead
Mrs. Rogers on the bed and Mr. Rogers whose hands are full of belongings. On a
regular pleasant social visit, no visitors would take admonitory precautions
and barge into other people’s rooms. U.N.Owen had set the visitors very well.
Since the deaths of Marston and Rogers, the guests had conferred that there was
a murderer on the island. Once reaching the mysterious conclusions, everybody
on the island asked themselves questions similar to, “Am I going to be next?”
or, “Who is the actual murderer?” The building up of suspicion caused
increasing amounts of vigilance. Another example is when Rogers is not in his
room, and Lombard goes rapping at Blore’s room, “The latter opened it
cautiously. His hair was tousled and his eyes were still dim with sleep”
(Amplify 11, Line 18). The fear and suspicion in the mysterious plight control
the visitors’ actions. It is almost as if the guests are innocent marionettes
being manipulated by U.N.Owen. When Lombard went a-rapping on Blore’s chamber
door, Blore was roused and opened it slowly, half-expecting to be exterminated
by the unknown rapper. Every action taken by the guests is now slow,
unexpecting, careful, and vigilant. None of the out-of-towners fully trust one another.
They just mutually benefit by having somebody to talk to, therefore not going
insane. One final example of the increasing prudence is when Judge Wargrave
summons a mini-court of the five remaining vacationers after Emily Brent is
found dead, “Not if we are careful. We must be very careful. . .” (Amplify 13,
Line 18). This quote is ironic, as the big bad wolf is telling the herd of pigs
to stay safe and careful. Wargrave says this after mentioning to stay together
and not take any risks. In other words, he is trying to direct attention away
from himself. At the time being in the story, he is making the others suspect
him less, although his fellow vacationers don’t have any idea that he is the
true slayer. To a reader who hasn’t read the end of the story, Wargrave is
justly advising the guests what to do to not be killed. He shows his growing
caution as well, for the decreasing amount of people on the island means that
he will soon be suspected. All in all, Wargrave implements the soldier boy
poem, making the other vacationers much more cautious and on-guard.
Furthermore, the strict usage of the poem in murder doesn’t
just make the guests more cautious, but it also drives some of them mad. One
example of the madness that the situation has bent the guests into is on the
second day, right before General MacArthur’s murder, ‘He said very gently and
softly: “Leslie . . . ?”’ (Amplify 8, Line 144). This quote explains that
MacArthur seems somewhat “offbeat” by the start of the next day. Claythorne
talks to him right before this quote is whispered. She sees him to have turned
eccentric because of the last night’s events. Due to the traumatizing deaths in
a row, MacArthur knows the end is near for all of the guests. When Claythorne
greets him, he just sits on a rock waiting for his life to end. It is almost as
if he foresees that everybody on the island would eventually meet their doom.
Claythorne apparently does not like hearing what the general has to say. The
general’s fear and suspicion have been converted into madness. He blabbers on
about how his wife, Leslie was always so beautiful and very jubilant and
content. A few moments after he admits to having sent Arthur Richmond off to
his death, he seems to be in the middle of a daydream or hallucination, unaware
of everything around him. He believes that Leslie is waiting right behind and
that Vera Claythorne does not exist anymore. Another example of the vacationers
being driven mad is when the remainder of the guests find Mr. Rogers dead, hit
in the back of the head, “She began laughing wildly again. Dr. Armstrong strode
forward. He raised his hand and struck her a flat blow on the cheek” (Amplify
11, Line 71). After the guests find Mr. Rogers’s corpse, Vera Claythorne starts
laughing and doesn’t stop until given a forceful slap from the doctor, which
helps her clear her senses. She fell into hysteria after considering that the
next person who dies shall be stung by a bee. Everybody is surprised when she
bursts out in uncontrollable laughter and hysteria, for Claythorne is known for
keeping her cool and level-headedness, even in a most unfortunate situation.
Her temporary hysterical behavior is caused when she sees yet another person
dead, this time “chopped in half” from chopping sticks. U.N.Owen set the vacationers
up in an unforgettable trap that none of the guests will escape from. Due to
Claythorne’s extreme avoidance of death, she blenched when seeing the dead
body, and fell into a hysterical state. One last example of U.N.Owen’s master
plan that made many guests delirious is when Emily Brent was found dead in her
knitting chair, “stung by a bee” “For the first time his voice was uneven,
almost shrill. It was as though even his nerves, seasoned by a long career of
hazards and dangerous undertakings, had given out at last” (Amplify 12, 108).
Even Lombard, one of the best guests at remaining somewhat calm in a situation,
started to lose his unruffled state. After finding the fifth death on the
island, Wargrave calls the mini-court back together. Lombard, who is a placid
character up until then, suddenly loses it. It is as if his training through
hazards and all sorts of dangers had caved under surges of pressure and
emotion. U.N.Owen had been a bigger bad wolf than even Lombard, the “big bad
wolf.” For these reasons, Wargrave uses the orderly planning of murders,
driving some guests mad while he does so.
In conclusion, Judge Wargrave is able to use the soldier boy
poem in his murder plot. The murder may be considered a “masterpiece,” as the
poem perfectly aligns with how each guest of Soldier Island is killed. Wargrave
follows the rhyme to strike fear, mistrust, and suspicion into his victims. The
fellow guests notice that the deaths coincide perfectly with the rhyme, but
this only bewilders and puzzles them more as they search for who is the actual
murderer. Being given special “treatment” by U.N.Owen, the visitors become more
cautious by the minute. All of them hang on to life very grittily, but all are
weighed down by guilt and hopelessness. In addition to this, some of the guests
are driven mad. Wargrave was able to use the poem to the best of his advantage.
First, the rhyme acted as a perfect distraction and sidekick to Wargrave, using
it to strike mortal terror into victims. His victims would lose morale and feel
helpless. Second, the guests would become more cautious and vigilant. This way,
the remaining guests would focus more on their own well being rather than
directly suspect Wargrave. Finally, some guests turned into “delirious beasts”
because of the plight that they faced. Due to this, the other guests who were
not demented wouldn’t focus their full attention wondering if the Judge was the
mysterious slayer. Simply put, Ten Little
Soldier Boys was an essential part of Agatha Christie’s novel, And Then There Were None. Now you know
the fate of the ten vacationers in the novel, do you think you will be driven
mad being stranded on an island?
