Analysis of Agatha Christie’s Contradictory Feminist Consciousness in Endless Night and Death on the Nile

Abstract Agatha Christie who was recognized as the “Mistress of Mystery” brought British classical detective novels into a golden age and she achieved a unmatched height in this field。 The society background, family background and her marriage experience make great influence on her creation。 As a female writer, her detective novels reflect her feminist tendency。 She created feminized detective images and some female criminals who had same abilities and intelligence as men。 However, under the influence of the Victorian tradition, she was inevitably submitted to the male discourse。 Thus Agatha Christie showed the anti-feminism view through her works。 This paper aims to find out Agatha Christie’s feminist tendency and her anti-feminism view through analyzing the plot and some important characters in Endless Night and Death on the Nile。 This article is characterized by the combination of Agatha Christie's personal background, the background of the time, and the ideas she reveals in her works to discuss her contradictory feminine consciousness。90077

Key words: Agatha Christie; detective fictions; feminist tendency; anti-feminist

 从无尽长夜和尼罗河上的惨案中分析阿加莎克里斯蒂矛盾的女性意识

摘  要  将英国古典侦探文学带入黄金时代并被誉为“侦探小说女王”的阿加莎克里斯蒂在侦探文学领域上达到了一个前所未有的高度。她的创作受到来自时代背景，家庭情况以及她自身的人生经历的影响。作为一个女性作家，她的作品在很多方面体现了她的女权主义倾向。她创作出了女性化的侦探形象以及塑造了许多在智力与能力上与男性不相上下的女性罪犯。然而，维多利亚时期的传统女性观以及在男权话语主导的社会思想还是不可避免地影响了阿加莎克里斯蒂的创作思想，她的作品也体现出了反女权主义的观点。本文选取《无尽长夜》与《尼罗河上的惨案》这两本作品分析其故事梗概以及主要人物的性格特征来体现阿加莎克里斯蒂的女性主义倾向和反女性主义思想这两种对立的意识。本文的特点是将阿加莎克里斯蒂的个人背景源Q于W优E尔A论S文R网wwW.yOueRw.com 原文+QQ75201,8766 ，当时的时代背景以及她的作品中流露的思想结合起来论述其矛盾的女性意识。

毕业论文关键词：阿加莎∙克里斯蒂；侦探小说；女性主义倾向；反女性主义 

Contents

1。 Introduction 。 1

2。Background of Agatha Christie 2

  2。1。 Historical Background 2

  2。2。 Childhood Experience。3

  2。3。 Marriage Experience3

3。 Christie’s Feminist Tendencies 。。4

 3。1。 Two Feminized Detectives: Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple 。。4

  3。2。 Brilliant female criminals 5

4。 Christie’s Anti-Feminist View 。。 6

  4。1。 The end-result of woman: Marriage and Family。。6

  4。2。 Typical Female Images in Traditional Literature: Angle and Monster 7

5。 Conclusion 。 8

References。。9

1。 Introduction

Agatha Christie (1890-1976) was an English crime novelist, short story writer and playwright。 She was famous for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, particularly those involving her fictional detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple。 Detective fiction is a genre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective investigates a crime, often murder。 The symbol of the emergence of modern detective novels is The Murders in the Rue Morgue written by American writer Edgar Allen Poe in 1841。 However the first professional detective novelist is the British writer Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) who was known as "the father of detective stories"。 The period of the 1920s and 1930s is generally referred to as the Golden Age of Detective Fiction。 During this period, a number of very popular writers emerged, mostly British but with a notable subset of American and New Zealand writers。 Female writers constituted a major portion of notable Golden Age writers, including Agatha Christie, the most famous of the Golden Age writers, and among the most famous authors of any genre, of all time。 As for Agatha Christie, who was recognized as the “Mistress of Mystery” brought British classical detective novels into a golden age and achieved a unmatched height in this field。 According to statistics, the number of translation books of Agatha’s novels is larger than Shakespeare and ranks only second to the Bible。