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leesdossier:
Aantal downloads : 626
Aantal woorden: 1274
Ingezonden door: Robert Fagot
Uitgever: HarperCollinsPublishers
Meer leesdossiers van Agatha Christie op StudentsOnly:
* And there were none * And there were none * Death on the Nile * Endless night * Murder in the mews * Murder on the Orient Express * Sparkling cyanide * Ten little niggers * Ten little niggers * Ten little niggers * The hollow
Samenvatting
First reaction on the book:
I choose this book because I thought it wasn’t very difficult and because I mostly like detective books.
When I started reading "Ten Little Niggers" I didn't like the book. I didn't
understand what it was all about.
Getting into things
Eight people have been invited to come to Nigger Island for a few days. A taxi takes the guests from the train to the village Stickleham, where Fred Narracot is waiting to bring them to the island in his boat. On the island they're welcomed by two servants, Mr and Mrs Rogers. In her room, Vera finds a nursery rhyme hanging on the wall. It's about ten little nigger boys who disappear one after another until there is no nigger left.
When they are dining on the island suddenly a loud voice says that everyone has killed someone. Mrs Rogers falls down on the ground and Rogers explains that the voice came from a record that he had put on the gramophone, because his employer said he had to do that. When everybody is recovered from the shock, the guests discuss and compare their invitations. Most of them are signed by a U.N. Owen, what sounds like unknown! Justice Wargrave takes the leadership in their discussions. Then each person explains the 'murder' he has been accused.
Wargrave explains that he was the judge at the trial of Edward Seton, and that Seton was, quite rightly, found guilty and executed.
Vera Claythorne explains that the boy Cyril was drowned while in her charge, but no one blamed her for the accident.
General Macarthur explains that Arthur Richmond was an officer of his who died during the First World War. He denies that Richmond was his wife's lover.
Philip Lombard describes how he deliberately left 21 natives to die in the jungle without food.
Anthony Marston confesses that he ran over two children in his car but he says it was just bad luck.
Rogers confesses that an old woman that he and his wife were taking care of, suddenly died one night, leaving them something in her will.
Blore says he was only doing his duty in giving the evidence that led to the convection of the bank robber Landor, who died in prison a year later.
Armstrong pretends not to remember Louisa Mary Clees, but secretly he remembers how he caused her death because he was drunk when he operated on her.
Only Miss Brent refuses to say anything at all about the crime she's accused of. Wargrave suggests that they all leave the islands in the morning. Suddenly, Anthony Marston chokes on his drink and drops dead.
Rogers, clearing the table in the dining room, notices that one of the china figures is missing.
The next morning Mrs Rogers's found dead in her bed. No boat arrives from the mainland. And this time Rogers discovers that there are only eight china figures left on the table.
Miss Brent tells Vera how she dismissed her servant girl for bad morals, because she was pregnant. Lombard and Armstrong discuss the situation and decide that Marston and Mrs Rogers are murdered by some lunatic who has invited them to punish them for crimes the law hasn't been able to reach.
General Macarthur doesn't come in for lunch. He's found dead, hit on the head from behind. Another china figure's missing.
Any one of the seven could've done three murders. Everyone's afraid and suspicious of the others. Lombard thinks that Wargrave is the murderer and Vera believes it's Armstrong.
Outside, the storm rages. In the morning, no breakfast has been prepared and another china figure's missing. Rogers' body's found in the wash house, where he'd been chopping wood. He was killed with an axe.
The next victim's Miss Brent, who's given a deadly injection. Later, the hypodermic needle and the sixth china figure are found outside the dining room window.
When Vera goes to her room, she smells sea air and feels a hand strangling her. The others come running at her screams and find her dead.
Suddenly they notice that Wargrave isn't there. They find him downstairs, shot through the head. The four go to bed, each locking himself in. In the night Blore hears footsteps. Armstrong's room's empty. Blore and Lombard can't find him anywhere. There are only three china figures left.
In the morning the weather's calm and sunny. Vera, Lombard and Blore decide to stay outdoors, where they feel safer. But when Blore goes to the house for food, he's killed by a heavy marble clock falling on him from an upstairs window.
Vera manages to steal Lombard's revolver, and shoots him with it. The events of the past few days have affected her nerves so much that when she finds a rope hanging from the hook in her room, she hangs herself in it.
How could the rope hang there? That was because Mr. Justice Wargrave wasn't dead. He had pretended he was dead and was laid in his room. Nobody came into the room so it was easy to leave it and kill the others. When everybody was dead he wrote the whole story and put it into a bottle and threw it into sea. Then he commits suicide. And then there were none.
The whole story is told by all ten characters but the most is told by Wargrave.
Christie tells the story and she uses a style like she knows what will happen, it is an easy novel to read and she uses an easy choice of word. So it wasn’t very difficult. I also liked the thrilling way that murders are described in.
The story begins in 1930 on a small island, ‘Nigger Island’ a couple of minutes away from the coast of Devon, England.
The characters
- Justice Wargrave: a retired judge.
- Vera Claythorne: a young teacher at a girl's school.
- Philip Lombard: traveller and adventurer.
- Miss Emily Brent: a religious old lady, the daughter of a colonel.
- Gen. John G. Macarthur: a retired army officer.
- Dr. Edward G. Armstrong: a wealthy society physician.
- Anthony Marston: a handsome young bachelor, fond of driving fast cars.
- William H. Blore: calls himself Davies; an ex-policeman who runs a detective agency.
- Thomas & Ethel Rogers: servants on Nigger Island.
You see the story through the eyes of Wargrave, the justice, someone who is on the island but doesn’t know the end of the story either. It’s a he-story.
The main subject/theme is murder. The whole story is murder after murder, again and again. The link between the title and the theme is that the murder in the story makes that at the end everyone is dead and the title also says none is left.
Your personal opinion
Like I told by my first reaction, I didn’t like the book at the beginning but at chapter 3 when the mysterious things begun, I started to like the book. My favourite moments were the moments when there was a murder. The book described those moments in a very thrilling way.
I can certainly recommend this book to others who like thrilling detective stories who are also a bit mysterious. Because when you read this story, it is almost like you're in it.
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