Morality of Murder in Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

978 Words2 Pages

Morals are principles which help people to behave rightly. Also, they need to protect the rules. However, in Agatha Christie’s novel, Murder on the Orient Express, the characters act dishonestly: twelve passengers on the Orient Express murder Cassetti, they lie to the Belgian private detective, Hercule Poirot and the protagonist overlooks the passengers. Agatha Christie wrote these intensions fairly. From Murder on the Orient Express, the readers can learn that some set of morals are endorsed.
Before the explanation of twelve passengers’ moral, the description of Ratchett’s background is essential. Ratchett’s real name is Cassetti. He kidnapped Daisy Armstrong and her parents paid 200,000 dollars for her return. However, the diabolical man murdered Daisy brutally because of his fun. From the obituary, Mrs. Armstrong gave birth to a dead child who was born prematurely and herself died and Mr. Armstrong shot himself. Daisy’s nursemaid named Susanne committed suicide suspected of some involvement with the crime. Ratchett was arrested, but he escaped the justice by using the enormous money and power. The twelve passengers: Mrs. Hubbard, Hector McQueen, Edward Masterman, Colonel Arbuthnot, Mary Debenham, Princess Dragomiroff, Countess and Countess Andrenyi, Cyrus Hardman, Antonio Foscanelli, Greta Ohlsson, Hildegarde Schmidt and Pierre Michel relate the Armstrong family. They determine to kill Ratchett. Morality of the murder is the problem of reading Murder on the Orient Express. The readers ask themselves that they have a rights to kill a man. The novel suggests that murder is allowed under the right circumstances. If the kidnapping case is hideous and Ratchett is too evil, it is fine to kill him. This is the risk for the Armst...

... middle of paper ...

...solve the crimes. Poirot is ordinary person not the police, so he has no rights to arrest twelve juries. Last, police are not smarter than Poirot, so the sleuth knows they want to hear the simple answer.
People cannot do the bad morals. However, in Murder on the Orient Express, some of them are endorsed. First, the family of Armstrong commits the murder of Ratchett, but this action is correct because the victim is evil. Second, the Armstrongs lie to Hercule Poirot. They purposefully attempt to confuse and fool Poirot. They set an elaborate set of clues, lies and misleading evidence to veer the detective from the truth. Lastly, Poirot overlooks the Armstrong family because Ratchett is more evil than the murderers and the police want the simple answer. Murder on the Orient Express is a morality novel because it specifically judges and defines the bad moralities.

Open Document