How Does Vera Claythorne Present The Theme Of Guilt

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Justice Wargrave uses his judgements of the guests to devise an order in which he will murder his victims. His criteria for the murders are the severity of the crime, the criminal’s level of responsibility for the crime, and the level of guilt that the criminal feels about their wrongdoing. Wargrave plans his murders to align with who he believes deserves to suffer the most. This is evident in the murders of Mrs. Rogers, Emily Brent, and Vera Claythorne. Wargrave murders Mrs. Rogers early in the novel because he believes that she should not suffer as much as the others. She already suffers from enough guilt over her crime that Wargrave thinks she should not suffer from fear of death on the island. When the guests arrive at the house, Vera’s …show more content…

When the gramophone announces the list of murders, “Emily Brent sat upright, her head held high” (Christie 49), because she feels no remorse over the girl’s death. In Brent’s defense, she states, “The abandoned creature, not content with having one sin on her conscious, committed a still graver sin. She took her own life” (Christie 111). Although Brent did not directly tell Beatrice to kill herself, she drove the girl to it, despite her belief that “her own action-her own sin-that was what drove her to it” (Christie 111). As the novel progresses, Brent begins to express her guilt internally. She has dreams and hallucinations that Beatrice Taylor is with her, and right before her death, Brent states, “There was somebody in the room… somebody all wet and dripping… Beatrice Taylor came from the river” (Christie 199). Wargrave chooses this moment to kill Emily Brent because she is beginning to suffer from the guilt of her …show more content…

It is her fault that Cyril died and she feels very guilty about it, despite not expressing her guilt to the other characters. On the outside, Vera looks innocent, and Lombard states, “I don’t fancy there’s anything insane about you, Vera. You strike me as being one of the sanest and most levelheaded girls I’ve come across” (Christie 168). Internally, however, Vera expresses her guilt through dreams and hallucinations. In the beginning of the novel, Christie writes, “A picture rose clearly in her mind. Cyril’s head, bobbing up and down, swimming to the rock… and herself, swimming in easy practised strokes after him… but knowing, only too surely, that she wouldn’t be in time” (Christie 5). Wargrave believes that she is at fault even more because she lets Cyril die out of greed and lust. Vera thinks to herself, “Horrid whiney spoilt little brat! If it weren’t for him, Hugo would be rich… able to marry the girl he loved” (Christie 217). Wargrave leaves her to be the last victim, not only because she is the most guilt, but because he knows that guilt will lead her to suicide. For Wargrave, it was “an interesting psychological experiment. Would the conscious of her own guilt… be sufficient… to cause her to take her own life?” (Christie 298). In the end, she fulfills his expectations and kills herself like the poem

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