In Agatha Christie’s passage, her characters discuss the various secondary causes that contributed to the primary cause of Michael Gorman’s murder. Christie presents the effect, Gorman’s death, before its various attributing causes, creating a sense of mystery and suspense. By taking this approach, the characters backtrack through the causes of the murder; first, they establish that the primary reason that the girl killed Gorman was for money. Next, they explore the secondary causes that forced her hand: her mother’s illegitimate marriage, her colossal inheritance, and her love of a boy who would only marry for money. The entirety of the passage embodies the concept of antecedents and their consequences; in a situation such as this, when the only thing standing in between a girl and a fortune that will bring her both love and prosperity is her mother’s husband, what is the girl to do? Consequently, she is going to get rid of him by whatever means that she can. Christie uses this progression of causes to lead the reader to the logical conclusion, or …show more content…
Christie’s argument satisfies the five principle questions that surround the validity of a cause and effect argument; for the effect, the murder, may have had only one logical primary cause, it is possible that the girl was the murderer, other adequate causes were assessed but did not hold up, the circumstances were conducive to the murder, and the murder, at least in the eyes of the murderer, was inevitable. This, in combination with the agreement of several characters in the reading, creates a much more convincing argument than that of the knight in the second reading. Presumably, that is because it is easier and more effective to argue things that are true than it is to manufacture an argument based on