Representing Women of Violence Agatha Christie and Her Contemporary Culture

Abstract

As with the majority of the Golden Age detective fiction, the crime involved in most of Agatha Christie’s detective fiction is that of murder. Where she differs from writers such as Margery Allingham or Dorothy L. Sayers, however, is in the gender of her murderers since for most Golden Age writers, agency, particularly a potent, dangerous agency, demanded the virility of a masculine criminal. Interesting as Christie is, given her consistent representation of women behaving badly, the real issue might be the question of how the texts negotiate the depiction of these female murderers. A detailed analysis of the textual treatment of Agatha Christie’s female villains reveals a matter-of-fact acceptance of women as murderers, in a way that refuses to either demonise them for their rejection of gender stereotypes or to negate their agency and thus their power to disrupt society. Christie’s novels and short stories depict them in exactly the same tone as the male villains, an equality of treatment that crosses the gender divide.