Murder on the Orient Express Analysis Project By: Katherine Degner and Alex Orsini

Unfamiliar Vocabulary 1. Hymeneal- (adj.) of or pertaining to marriage 2. Pother- (v.) to worry 3. Expenditure- (n.) the act of using up 4. Metaphysics- (n.) the branch of philosophy studying the underlying principles of a subject 5. Onus- (n.) blame

Vocabulary continued Indignation- (n.) strong displeasure at something considered unjust, offensive, insulting, or base 7. Camorras- (n.) any similar activity 8. Culpability- (adj.) blameworthy 9. Irremediably- (adj.) not admitting of remedy 10. Cavorting- (v.) to prance

Vocabulary continued Delineation- (v.) portray in woods 12. Verisimilitude- (n.) probability 13. Hoodwink- (v.) to deceive 14. Ineptitude- (n.) quality of being clumsy

Characteristics According to Van Dine 1. The clues of the story have to be declared. The person reading has to be able to have the opportunity to solve the mystery with the detective. 2. There should be no outside ticks or deceptions given to the reader other than the tricks or deceptions placed on the detective. 3. There should never be a love interest. The point of having a mystery is to bring the criminal to justice. 4. The criminal should never turn out to be the detective of the case. 5. In order to solve who the criminal is, the steps in order to figure out who the criminal is must be logical. The criminal should not be determined by confessing or coincidence.

Characteristics According to Van Dine 6. The story must have a detective in it. A person is not a detective in the story unless he or she tries to figure out who the criminal is. The detective serves in the story as someone who finds clues and analyzes them. 7. There must be a dead person in the story. 8. Solving the crime must be solved by the detective using his or her own logic. The use of spiritualistic methods such as Ouija- boards and mind-reading are to never be used. 9. There should only be one detective, the protagonist of the story. 10. The criminal should turn out to be someone who the reader knows about and has played a role in the story.

Characteristics According to Van Dine 11. The culprit of the crime must be a noble person, not a servant. If the criminal was a servant, the solution would be too easy. 12. There can only be one person responsible for the crime. There may be people who help plan the crime or a minor helper, but only one person can actually commit the crime. 13. Detective stories should not include secret societies such as the mafia. The culprit would be too lucky to have a society to fall back on. 14. The solving of a crime must be rational and scientific. 15. The layout of the novel must allow the reader to understand who the culprit was. If the reader was to go back and reread the novel, they would see that the answers to the crime were apparent.

Characteristics According to Van Dine 16. The writer must not “beat around the bush”. The information given in the novel must be relevant to the crime. 17. The culprit must not be a professional criminal. 18. The solution to a detective story must not be an accident or suicide. 19. The crime must be motivated by a personal reason. 20. The crime must be original and not too easy to solve.

5 Rules of Van Dine Rule 5: "The culprit must be determined by logical deductions- not by accident or coincidence or unmotivated confession. To solve a criminal problem in this latter fashion is like sending the reader on a deliberate wild-goose chase, and then tell him him, after he has failed, that you had the object of his search up your sleeve all the time. Such an author is no better than a practical joker" (Van Dine). Explanation: In the novel Murder on the Orient Express, Poirot uses logic to figure out who the killer was. These logical deductions included formally interrogating each suspect using different types of questioning for each person. He also analyzed each piece of evidence relating them to one of the twelve passengers he interviewed. He created ten logical questions that would be used to come to a conclusion on who murdered Ratchett. Quote: "On the paper was written: THINGS NEEDING EXPLANATION 1. The handkerchief marked with the initial H. Whose is it? 2. The pipe-cleaner. Was it dropped by Colonel Arbuthnot? Or by someone else? 3. Who wore the scarlet kimono? 4. Who was the man or woman masquerading in Wagon Lit uniform? 5. Why do the hands of the watch point to 1.15? 6. Was the murder committed at that time? 7. Was it earlier? 8. Was it later? 9. Can we be sure that Ratchett was stabbed by more than one person? 10. What other explanation of his wounds can there be?" (Christie 189, 190)

5 Rules of Van Dine Rule 7: "There simply must be a corpse in a detective novel, and the deader the corpse the better. No lesser crime than murder will suffice. Three hundred pages is far too much pother for a crime other than murder. After all, the reader's trouble and expenditure of energy must be rewarded" (Van Dine). Explanation: In Murder on the Orient Express, a man named Ratchett is harshly murdered. The whole novel revolves around trying to figure out who killed him. He was stabbed twelve times, each stab being different sizes and depths. At the end of the novel, the reader is given the answer of who killed Ratchett. Quote: "I think I can say yes. Some of these blows, as I have already said, point to a weakness- a lack of strength or a lack of determination. They are feeble, glancing blows. But this one here-and this one-" Again he pointed. "Great strength was needed for those blows. They have penetrated the muscle" (Christie 56).

5 Rules of Van Dine Rule 12: "There must be but one culprit, no matter how many murders are committed. The culprit may, of course, have a minor helper or co-plotter, but the entire onus must rest on one pair of shoulders: the entire indignation of the reader must be permitted to concentrate on a single black nature" (Van Dine). Explanation: Murder on the Orient Express does not follow this rule. There were twelve people who stabbed Ratchett, but the reader does not know which stab killed him. Poirot concluded that there were twelve culprits, not one. Quote: "A jury is composed of twelve people- there were twelve passengers- Ratchett was stabbed twelve times" (Christie 239)

5 Rules of Van Dine Rule 18: "A crime in a detective story must never turn out to be an accident or a suicide. To end an odyssey of sleuthing with such an anti- climax is to hoodwink the trusting and kind-hearted reader" (Van Dine). Explanation: In Murder on the Orient Express, Ratchett, who is really Cassetti, is murdered brutally by twelve passengers aboard the famous Orient Express. Throughout the story, Poirot, the detective, used logical conclusions to resolve this crime. In this novel, the twelve people that he interviewed admitted to having a personal relation to the Armstrong Case. He had twelve stab wounds, each being different sizes and depths. There is no way that Ratchett's death is a suicide or accident because no one who is committing suicide would stab themselves that many times. Quote: "The Greek doctor gave a sardonic laugh. 'Does a man who commits suicide stab himself in ten-twelve-fifteen places?' he asked" (Christie 41).

5 Rules of Van Dine Rule 19: "The motives for all crimes in detective stories should be personal. International plottings and war politics belong in a different category of friction- in secret service tales for instance. But a murder 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" (Van Dine). Explanation: In Murder on the Orient Express, fourteen people people were aboard the Calais Coach on the Orient Express. While they were on the train, twelve of the passengers stabbed Ratchett, who was actually Cassetti. Cassetti was head of the gang who kidnapped and killed Daisy Armstrong, a lovely and kind girl who everyone adored. He was rich and was acquitted because of a technical inaccuracy. When Daisy died, her mother gave premature birth to a dead baby, and died herself. Out of heartbreak, Daisy's father committed suicide. The Armstrong's French maid also committed suicide because she was being accused of knowing of the crime. Therefore, there were many victims of the case. Each passenger who stabbed Ratchett (Cassetti) had a very personal relation to the Armstrong case. They had a drive to kill Cassetti in order feel that justice was served. Quote: "It wasn't only that he was responsible for my daughter's death and her child's and that of the other child who might have been alive and happy now. It was more than that: there had been other children kidnapped before daisy, and there might be others in the future. Society had condemned him-we were only carrying out the sentence (Christie 245).

Does Murder on the Orient Express fit in with the pattern for whodunits laid out by Van Dine? Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie fits in with the pattern of the laws created by Van Dine. Poirot, the detective, was the only person who was mainly analyzing evidence, along with the help of M. Bouc and Dr. Constantine. This novel is a murder mystery, in which Ratchett (Cassetti) is brutally murdered with twelve stab wounds. Throughout the story, numerous clues and logical pieces of information are shown to the reader that play a key role in solving the murder mystery. The murderers turned out to be all the people Poirot interviewed. Each rule of Van Dine except for number twelve relates to Murder on the Orient Express.

Works Cited Christie, Agatha. Murder on the Orient Express. Toronto: Bantam, Print. Van Dine, S. S. ""Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories"" American Magazine Sept. 1928: n. pag. Web.