Priscilla Carson
T. Burge
English 12B
Online
March 29, 2016

The Life of Agatha Christie

Agatha Miller’s unusual childhood promoted her remarkable imagination which followed to her creativeness. Rebelling against her mother’s decisions, Agatha taught herself to read and she had brief to no education until she was the age of fifteen or sixteen. Agatha Christie always stated that she had no drive to be a writer in spite of the fact she made her debut in print at age 11 with a poem printed in the local London newspaper. Her mother suggested she jot down some stories she was fond of telling while in bed with influenza, and so a lifelong emotion for writing began. By her late teenage years she had many poems published in The Poetry Review and had written a number of miniature stories. But it was her sister’s challenge to write a detective story that would later spark what would become her illustrious career. “Agatha was a natural viewer, her presentation of village politics, local rivalries and family jealousies are most times exact.” Agatha Christie was described as a person who listened more than she talked and who saw more than she was ever seen. The most every day events and observations could release the idea for a new plot for her. Agatha was a big fan of detective novels. Her second book The Secret Adversary originated from a discussion in a tea shop. Christie became the unrecognized “Queen of Crime Fiction During her life span, she wrote more than 66 novels, several short stories and screenplays, along with a number of romantic movies using the pseudonym Mary Westmacott.
“Countless novels of hers were created into motion pictures; the most famous one being Murder on the Orient Express in 1974.” Seemingly, a powerful force of writing developed on the author as well, after the incident on the 3rd of December when she suddenly disappeared. “There was wide spread speculation that she had been murdered when her car was found abandoned near a lake named Silent Pool in Surrey with the hood up, lights on, and the cab holding her belongings.” There are many accounts on how many hundreds of people went out searching for her, but after eleven days she was finally discovered at the Hydropathic Hotel in Harrowgate where she was visiting under a discrete name. “This situation pierced mysterious likeness to a scene from one of her novels, and it was later fit into a book by Jared Cade titled, Eleven Missing Days. Similarly, there was another novel, Agatha, written by Kathleen Tynan which was made into a major motion picture.” Agatha continuously looked for "creative inspiration" by viewing the people around her; however, her chosen genre, the murder mystery, as her writing process because it was challenging at times to bring reality into generic environments; for example, she sometimes had dilemmas in using attributes of associate to do things she couldn't imagine them doing, like murder, and this often caused a block on her writing process. To conquer this problem, she would develop many characters from scratch. She would jot down the appearances of strangers whom she saw, met in public, and then would use their similarities and subdued oddity to develop relatable characters for her mysteries. “A usual thread in many of Agatha's novels was to develop a psychological restraint and to manipulate immediate references and brilliant characters that appeared to be crossing a stage.” Her stories felt that way, as if you were sitting in an audience watching the most fashionable play unfold before you.
It is not a surprise that TV shows based on her works were filled with astonishing actors playing irritable, conceited, yet relatable, desperate characters. To avoid being still, Agatha produced a habit of writing more than one book at a time. “Despite being raised by an prosperous upper-class family in England, her language was always simple, using a writing style that every reader could understand and enjoy.” Although in style, her arousing plots and sub-plots challenged readers to figure out "who did it" before the story ended. Agatha cleverly paced material, allowing readers to move through stories at a steady or slow pace that enhanced the drama. She relied heavily on conversation, a technique to vary the pacing of the story as well as to heighten suspense. “The start of her works is strong on description, which gradually drop off as dialogue and interaction between characters take over.” With shorter sentences and sharp dialogue, she hurries readers along to what's always a captivating conclusion. Agatha planned her mysteries with compound deceptions to control readers' thoughts and feelings and to make it more difficult for readers to solve the main mystery. “She used the same story conventional method formula for many of her crime novels: the main character who a detective or private investigator either discovers the murder or a past friend, somehow associated with the murder, contacts the main character for help.” She also use settings in her stories that she is familiar with. As the story unfolds, the main character questions every suspect, investigates the terrain of the crime, and carefully jots down each clue, allowing readers to scrutinize the clue and try to solve the mystery on their own. Just as readers build up clues and think they know who might have committed the murder, “Agatha kills off one or a few main suspects, leaving readers shocked and confused that they were wrong about the murderer's identity.” Soon the main character gathers all of the remaining suspects at one location and reprimands the offender, bringing to light numerous unconnected secrets along the way, usually lasting 20-30 pages. Agatha's world is unique, like that of any other author. And yet, her world is familiar with its attractive and quiet English villages and the influence of politics in people's lives.

Citation Information
Article Title: Agatha Christie Biography

Author: Biography.com Editors

Website Name: The Biography.com website

URL: http://www.biography.com/people/agatha-christie-9247405

Agatha Christie. Turner Entertainment Co., 2009.