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  • Essay / Literary Analysis: And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

    ATTWN Literary AnalysisHomosapiens are the most psychologically complex organisms on Earth. We have governments, languages, arts, music and technology. Every person on the planet is so unique that it would be easier to find two identical snowflakes than two identical people. However, we have some things in common, despite what most think. The 10 murderous characters conjured up by the famous wizard of an author, Agatha Christie, are invited to the island of a seemingly innocent millionaire by the mysterious UN Owen in the award-winning novel And Then There Were None. Each person is invited by different people for different reasons: an old army buddy reunion, an undercover investigation, and a secretary position. Then they are all accused of heinous crimes by a recording and are murdered one by one until none are left alive. The characters in And Then There Were None represent the self-preservation, fear, and predictability of humanity. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Humans have a way of blaming others to redirect the accusations against themselves. If a student, for example, decided to cheat on a test, they would probably get a good grade, but they would be breaking a rule. So they don't admit it because it benefits them. This is similar to how all 10 characters in And Then There Were None committed murders and got away with it. They wanted to protect their own well-being and avoid being imprisoned. For example, on page 191, Detective William Blore and Philip Lombard have a heated discussion about Blore's crime. Blore continues to defend himself against Lombard's accusatory remarks until he begins to challenge Lombard's justification for bringing a gun. They continue to do it to preserve themselves. Earlier, Lombard freely admits to killing twenty-one men belonging to an East African tribe. He said: “The story is completely true! I left them! Question of self-preservation. We were lost in the bush. Me and a few other guys grabbed what food there was and left. It's not quite an act of pukka sahib, I'm afraid. But self-preservation is man's first duty. (p. 67) » Similar to Lombard's arrogant actions, the other characters eventually stop caring about the fate of others; they were simply worried about their own future on the evil island they were trapped on. The victims all stubbornly maintain that they have not committed or never will commit any illegal activity, much less murder. Fear is another motivation for what we do. On page 265, Vera Claythorne and Philip Lombard are in a difficult situation. After the discovery of Detective Blore's death, the list of suspects was reduced to just one: each other! Vera honed Lombard's gun, while he was distracted, with his back to her, and shot him dead out of fear he would kill her. Humans generally don't want to die. Believe it or not, some people are even terrified of dying! Who would have thought it? So, in order to protect themselves from premature death, they sometimes do everything in their power to achieve this. This shows how similar fear and self-preservation are. Our species are so intellectual that we can also predict each other's actions. Sometimes they don't even have to be very close people. At the end of this harrowing story, the murderer, Judge Lawrence Wargrave, explains why he, 54(2), 167-184.