Detection or Endless Deferral/Absence in Detective Fiction: Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None
Journal Title: Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi - Year 2017, Vol 57, Issue 2
Abstract
Detective fiction, one of the most popular genres of the novel, is grounded on the concepts of crime and detection. The rise in detective fiction is followed by the surge of theories on this genre, particularly informed by (post)modern readings. Agatha Christie, "the Queen of Crime", not only contributed to the founding of the conventions of the genre, the "rules" of the "game", but she also defied and subverted the very codes of the genre during the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. Therefore, Christie's novels can be read as the decoding or deconstruction of the genre as well. Christie's And Then There Were None depicts the double-faced nature of truth or detection, as it reflects the endless doubling and deferral of presence/absence, criminal/victim, and lawgiver/lawbreaker. The nursery rhyme "Ten Little Indians" ("niggers"/"soldiers"), which is central to the novel, is a centripetal as well as a centrifugal force serving as the element through which meaning disseminates into others inside and outside. The rhyme enacts the fluid nature of signifiers of truth through the doubling of binaries such as innocence/guiltiness, childhood/adulthood, nurturing/indifference, white/black, self/other, primitive/civilized, and presence/absence. The rhyme, as well as the narrative is integral to moral, psychological, sociocultural, racial, and colonial/imperial implications. Even lacking a detective, this detective novel epitomizes detection as evasion or absence. The aim of this paper is to inspect the detective genre with a view to the performative, slippery, and ludic aspect of detection/truth as well as the dissemination, deferral or "purloining" of meaning through And Then There Were None.
Authors and Affiliations
M. Ayça VURMAY
Keywords
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