Transcript MURDER on the Oriental Express Analysis Project

By: Jordan Bernhardt and Isaac Palacios
10 Vocab words
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 Hymeneal (adjective)- of or pertaining to marriage
 Expenditure (noun)- the act of expending something, especially funds/to use up
something
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Metaphysics (noun)- The branch of philosophy that treats of first principle
Onus (noun)- a difficult or disagreeable obligation, tasks, burden
Indignation (noun)- strong displeasure of something
Camorras (noun)- a secret society of Naples, Italy, associated with blackmail and
robbery
 Irremediably (adjective)- Not admitting of remedy, cure, and repair
 Cavorting (verb)- To prance or caper about, to behave high spirited
 Verisimilitude (noun)- the appearance or semblance of truth; likelihood;
probability
 Spinster (noun)- A woman who is unmarried beyond usual age of marrying.
20 Rules for writing a
detective story: 1-10
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 1) The reader must also be able to solve the mystery. All clues
must be stated and described.
 2) No tricks played on the reader unless they are legitimately
played by the criminal or detective.
 3) There must be no love interest with the detective.
 4) The detective cannot be the culprit.
 5) The culprit must be determined by logical deduction.
 6) The detective must have a detective who figures out the
mystery by detecting.
 7) There must be a corpse involved in the novel.
 8) The mystery must be solved by naturalistic means.
 9) There must only be one detective.
 10) The reader must be familiar with the culprit.
20 Rules for writing a
detective story:11-20
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11) The servant/butler/maid may not be the culprit.
12) There must be one culprit responsible for all murders.
13) No secret societies, camorras, or mafias.
14) The method of the murder and the means of detecting it
must be scientific.
15) The truth of the crime must always be apparent.
16) The novel should not contain long descriptive passages, or
subtle occurrences.
17) No professional criminals.
18) No accidents or suicides.
19) Personal motivations for murder only.
20) No cliché clues.
Rule #4
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“The detective himself, or one of the official investigators, should never turn out
to be he culprit. This is bald trickery, on a par with offering some one a bright
penny for a five-dollar gold piece. It’s false pretenses”(Van Dine).
 In Murder on the Orient Express
Poriot is the detective. He
solves this gruesome murder
with the help of two people.
He finds out in the end that
everyone on the train stabbed
him once except him and two
other people. In rule #4 it says
the detective cannot be the
culprit in the story. Poriot is
the detective and he was one
of the people who did not
murder Ratchett.
 “He awoke some hours
later, awoke with a start.
He knew what it was that
had awaken him- a load
groan almost a cry,
somewhere close at hand.
At the same moment the
ting of a bell sounded
sharply”(Christie 32).
Rule #7
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“There simply must be a corpse in a detective novel, and the deader the corpse the
better. No lesser crime in the murder will suffice. Three hundreds pages is too
much pother for a crime other than a murder. After all, the reader’s trouble and
expenditure of energy must be rewarded”(Van Dine).
 Murder on the Oriental Express
fits many rules of Van Dine’s
Twenty rules for writing a
detective story, specifically on
rule #7. Rule #7 states that
there must be a corpse in the
story and the deader the
better. Ratchett is the person
who is murdered in the story.
He is stabbed 12 times and he
lied dead in his own bed.
 “It is not pretty, he said .
Someone must have stood
there stabbed him again and
again. How many stab
wounds are there exactly. I
make it twelve. One or two
are so slight as to be scratches.
On the other hand, at least
three would be capable of
causing death” (Christie 54).
Rule #10
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“The culprit must turn out to be a person who has played a more or less
prominent part in the story- that is, a person with whom the reader is familiar
and in whom he takes an interest”(Van Dine).
 The novel fits rule #10,
the reader had knowledge
of who the culprits were
and we were very
familiar with them.
Detective Hercule Poirot
interviews each passenger
on the train. During these
interviews we learn a lot
about their pasts and who
they are.
 “Poirot cut himself
short. ‘Did you ever
come across any
members of the
Armstrong family?”
 “No, I don’t think so. It
is difficult to
say”(Christie 132).
Rule #11
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“A servant must not be chosen by the author as the culprit. This is begging a noble
question. It is a too easy solution. The culprit must be a decidedly worth-while
person- one that wouldn’t ordinarily come under suspicion”(Van Dine).
 Rule #11 clearly states
that a servant, butler, or
maid cannot commit the
crime. In Murder on the
Orient Express Mr.
McQueen helps murder
Ratchett. MacQueen is the
servant/secretary of
Ratchett, so it would fail
this rule.
 “First of all, I should
like a word or two with
Ratchetts young
secretary, Mr.
MacQueen. He may be
able to give us valuable
information”(Christie
45).
Rule #19
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“The motives for all cries in detective stories should be personal. International plotting's and war politics
belong in a different category of fiction--- in secret-service tales, for instance. But a murder story must be kept
gemutlich, so to speak. It must reflect the reader’s everyday experiences, and give him a certain outlet for his
own repressed desires and emotions.
 On the train 12 people murdered
Ratchett. They all were related to a
little girl Daisy who was killed by
Ratchett. They were all heart broken
after this happened. It cause the
mother to go into early birth which
killed her and the baby. Then the
father committed suicide. Everyone
related to them was devastated. So
they all planed to get on the same
train to kill Ratchett. In rule #19 it
states that there can only be personal
motivation for the murder. Everyone
who stabbed him on the train were all
related to the Armstrong family in one
way or another.
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When she was three years old she was
kidnapped, and an impossibly high sum
demanded as the price of her return. I will
not weary you with all the intricacies that
followed. I will come to the moment when,
after the parents had paid over the
enormous sum of $200,000, the child's dead
body was discovered; it has been dead for
at least a fortnight public indignation rose
to a fever point. And there was worse to
follow. Mrs. Armstrong was expecting
another baby following the shock of the
discovery, she gave birth prematurely to a
dead child, and herself died. Her broken
hearted husband shot himself(Christie 64).
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 Murder on the Orient Express follows all of Van Dine’s rules
excepts for numbers 11 and 12. Rule #11 states that a servant of the
victim may not turn out to be the culprit. In the book Ratchett has a
secretary named Hector MacQueen, Who turns out to be one of the
culprits in the murder of Ratchett. The book also doesn’t follow
rule #12. Rule #12 basically states that there must be one culprit
responsible for all murders. In this book there were 12 people
responsible for one murder. As Van Dine said, “if the book breaks
one rule it is not a detective novel”. Murder on the Orient Express
broke 2 rules which means that according to Van Dine, Agatha
Christie didn’t write a detective novel. We personally think that
the book was a detective novel. It had the suspense, the mystery,
the tricks, and the confusion that all detective novels have. Van
Dines rules are opinion, but so are our thoughts of the book. Those
rules were written in 1928, we think its time for an update.
THE END
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