1.

Difference between conventional detective and Agatha

Christie.
A conventional detective, Christie is inheriting the tradition of
Sherlock Holmes when he presented this. Sherlock Holmes was
British, Hercule Poirot is residing in England but his nationality is
not England, he is Belgian. The way he speaks is different, the
way he dresses is different, “an egg-shaped head, often tilted to
one side, and eyes that shine green when he’s excited” [‘The
Mysterious Affair at Styles’] he is not that much tall, he has a
rather precarious moustache. Whenever we look at him, we feel
that he is a bureaucrat. With his appearance he subverts the
conventional appearance of a detective.
In Modernist literature, English influence is very less compare to
the people coming from foreign. Rabindranath Tagore gets his
novel prize in starting of Modern age. There are several righters
like T.S Eliot who writes in English though he is an American.
Christie is adhering to that convention by making his detective in
Belgium, not in English.
The city is a familiar state to the detective, but here Hercule
Poirot solve the mystery come from his homeland.

2. Formula of detective fiction and challenging the

formula.
A detective novel has traditionally been action centric in that
the solution is reached through an unearthing of clues with one
motive – finding the criminal.
Ronald Knox was a mystery writer in the early part of the
20th century who wrote a 10 Commandments of detective
fiction:
1. The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part
of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the
reader has been allowed to follow.
2. All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a
matter of course.
3. Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable.
4. No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any
appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the
end.
5. No Chinaman must figure in the story.
6. No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever
have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.
7. The detective must not himself commit the crime.
8. The detective must not light on any clues which are not
instantly produced for the inspection of the reader.
9. The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not
conceal any thoughts which pass through his mind; his
intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of
the average reader.
10. Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear
unless we have been duly prepared for them.
The structure of the traditional detective novel is like a jigsaw
puzzle. The creation of the puzzle begins with the conclusion, the
whole is then divided into parts that exist to be rearranged.
In The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the puzzle begins with the
murder, and pieces are slowly arranged and rearranged to
retrieve the true picture and reveal the mystery of the death of
Roger Ackroyd, the solution of the puzzle. Christie’s Roger
Ackroyd playfully breaks the very first rule for instance, as well
as the ninth rule.
In the conventional detective fiction, narrator narrates in such a
way such that readers can get some kind of hints at the very early
stage of the story, and narrators narrating strategy goes on such
way that reader can’t believe the criminal. But, at the end of the
story we get to know that the narrator Dr. Shepherd is the
criminal. By his narrating strategy, In this way, it breaks the
conventional rule of a detective fiction. In the conventional
detective fiction, there should be a foil character who is the
assistant of the detective. For example, Dr. Watson is Sherlock
Holmes’ assistant, Tapesh is Felusa’s and Ajit is Byomkesh’s
assistant. This foil character should be less intelligent, and he
asks some naïve question to the detective. His presence helps the
detective to glorify. Hastings is that assistant of Hercule Poirot.
But in “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd”, we do not get to meet
Poirot’s assistant Hastings. By the narration, we sometimes
presume that Dr. Shepherd is the assistant here, but he is not a
foil character at all. So in this way rule number 9 is broken in this
text.
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd occupies a very distinct place in the
history of detective fiction. By challenging the conventions of
detective fiction by placing the criminal as narrator, it paved the
way for a more self-conscious detective fiction with metafictional
qualities, including stylized postmodernist detective and crime
narratives such as Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy (1985-1986),
Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose (1980) etc.

3. The issue of Hercule Poirot’s assistant.

Hercule Poirot is the detective of Agatha Christy. He was firstly
appeared in Agatha Christie's first published novel The
Mysterious Affair at Styles, which debuted in 1920. As the
conventional detective fiction, Poirot also has his assistant,
Hastings. The assistant should be very naïve, not very sharp
character. He acts as the foil. But in this story of “The Murder of
Roger Ackroyd”, there is no assistant. Instead there is Dr.
Shepherd who helps Poirot. As we get to see in the conventional
detective fiction, we immediately expect Dr. Shepherd to fulfill
that role of the detective’s assistant. But immediately we get to
know how wrong we are that he is an antagonist of the story.
Through this technique, Christie is challenging the idea of
conventional detective assistant.
Assistant is someone against whom detective glorify as Gopal is
glorifed in the presence of Rakhal in Isswar Chandra’s
“Bornoporichoi”. In the traditional detective story, the assistant
is somewhat foil character. He is somewhat intellectually simple,
he is not that intelligent, he often asks naive question to the
detective that readers might be thinking. Basically, he is the voice
of the reader and he is the naive friend of the detective who acts
as the assistant. This is what the conventional role of a assistant
is. However, “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” is an
exceptional. It challenges the role of this conventional idea of
assistant. In “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd”, we do not get to
meet the assistant Hastings. Instead we meet the figure of Dr.
Shepherd. We are trained to assume that this apparently, less
intelligent who is also telling the story, maybe he is replacing the
missing Hastings in this story. We soon realize that he is not the
assistant (foil) at all, he is the antagonist. Therefore, “The
Murder of Roger Ackroyd” is one particular story where the foil
device does not work conventionally, it is not there at all. The foal
should be naive, should be innocent kind of a person. But Dr.
Shepherd is acting like an innocent, but it is his tricks to act like
this.
Dr. Shepherd is a doctor; he is a person connected to the
household because he used to trick that before hand. It is through
him we get the exposition of this text, it is his perspectives that
we see. At the end we get to know that Dr. Shepherd is the
murderer though he is a narrator of the story. We the readers,
easily believe him and doesn’t even suspect him. So, he is an
unreliable narrator. But, Poirot is not believing Dr. Shepherd
blindly, rather Poirot is allowing him to lead the role, because in a
detective scene, doctors’ opinion (forensic opinion) is very much
important to find the way of death. There is a masterful strategy
in the part of Poirot as Dr. Shepherd could not suspected.

4. The theme of unreliable narrator.

A novel or a story presented to the readers through a filter. A
speaker tells the story, it can be third person, it can be first
person. First person is a character own self. A greatest example
can be “Tenida” & “Feluda”. Third person narrator is someone
who knows all the events, but he doesn’t participate in that
events, he is just telling the story. Second person narrator talks to
the readers by mentioning the readers ‘you’. Unreliable narrator
is someone who is telling the story but lying, skipping the facts
from the main story, who is not revealing things entirely. When
we read a story, we trust the narrator fully. We never think, that a
reader can lie to us. An unreliable narrator is that narrator who
lies, who is not honest with readers.
Unreliable narrator in detective fiction serves a primary purpose.
Detective fiction is all about solving a mystery. But, if there is an
unreliable narrator in the detective fiction, then definitely there
are two lairs. From narrative point of view, there is a detective
who solves the mystery but second lair is we the reader also solve
a mystery. Reader start like a detective, we the reader see every
character, but then we doubt everyone including the narrator.
In Agatha Christy’s “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd”, the
narrator is Dr. Shepherd who is the narrator of the story but he is
unreliable because he himself is a murdered. When the story
begins we the readers trust him blindly, just as we trust every
narrator. But when the story is unfolding, if we pay very minute
attention to every details, the narrator Dr. Shepherd gives us hint
that he is the murderer. Something happened and Hercule Poirot
is doubtful to all the people in the house, then Dr. Shepherd says
“His glance, challenging and accusing, swept around the table.
And every pair of eyes dropped before his. Yes, mine as well.”
(Chapter 12) We get to see from the narrative that everyone of
the house is guilty for something. Therefore, they can’t look at
Poirot’s eyes. They are dropping their heads. It will make us
questionable what can doctor be guilty, because doctors save life.
But there is a hint of that red crime in the narration. The narrator
is generally trustworthy. But here we can’t trust the narrator Dr.
Shepherd.
We suspect every one presence in the house but we hardly
suspect the voice who is speaking to us from the very beginning
that is Dr. Shepherd. It is a very interesting narrative strategy in
the part of Agatha Christie. We see a narrator and believe him, it
proves our naive nature. Agatha Christie questions this naïve
attitude. Hercule Poirot is the detective of this tale because he is
not naïve like us. The way we believe an apparently innocent
doctor or narrator, Poirot does not commit the same mistake.
Agatha Christie works within the convention but at the same time
she challenges the convention as well. We couldn’t find much
unreliable narrator’s presence in the detective fiction. She is
unique. This story echoes the idea that though the man is the
narrator but that man is not essential good, trustworthy.

5. Theme of guilt and human nature.

The romantic understanding of human being is influenced by
Rousseau. He believes that man is essentially good, man is
essentially closer to nature; it is the civilization that makes us
forget our rules, but if man is closer to nature he is essentially
good. But the modern artists have witnessed the First World War.
Having witnessed the atrocities of the First World War, they
cannot trust Rousseau. They feel that man is not essential good in
nature, rather man is essentially bad and limited. So obviously
that theme of guilt and human nature which traditionally exist,
Christie does not quite abide by that. Christie challenges the
romantic understanding of human nature and guilt.
Rousseau's idea was that man is essentially a virtual, moral
creature. And the romantic artists believe in this. They felt that
man is essentially good. However, towards the end of the
Victorian age, with rise of industrialization, rise of crime; religion,
morality is being doubted. In Victorian Age, the First World War
happens and people see that man is capable of unthinkable
brutality, because it was the first mechanized warfare. In
Modernist literature this idea replaced the previous idea that the
man is essentially bad, corrupted. There is no redeeming feature
of man at all. Here lies Hobbesian idea of man’s nature which is
violence.
Agatha Christie writes with this heritage in the back of his mind.
He sees that man is not Good at all. This idea is reflected in his
detective work called “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” and
“Detective fiction” is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery
fiction in which an investigator or a detective—either professional,
amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. As it is a
detective fiction, the story is also based on this centered idea and
based on this, characters are rooting around. In the story we get
to see that the murder of Roger Ackroyd happened and Hercule
Poirot, the detective of the story, is doubtful to all the people in
the house, then the narrator rather unreliable narrator Dr.
Shepherd says “His glance, challenging and accusing, swept
around the table. And every pair of eyes dropped before his. Yes,
mine as well.” (Chapter 12) We get to see from the narrative
that every one of the house is guilty for something.
In chapter I, we get to see that Mr. Ashley Ferrars, an
attractive widow, attempts suicide in remorse of his husband’s
murder. 'Remorse?' 'Yes. You never would believe me when I told
you she poisoned her husband.” Further we get to know at the
end of the story that he narrator as well as the murderer, Dr.
Sheppard completes his manuscript—his written account of the
investigation—and adds a chapter at the end in which he
confesses his guilt. He mulls over the possible options for suicide
and decides on a sleeping drug. The story ends with this and
gives the proof of human’s nature and guilt to his readers.