Perspective Structure in Agatha Christie’s Five Little Pigs (Murder in Retrospect)

This essay examines the double-layered perspective structure in Agatha Christie’s Five Little Pigs (Murder in Retrospect). Poirot's technique for solving the old mystery is to apply a multiperspectival mode of narration. In addition to talking with the related law officials who dealt with the Crale case at the time of its trial, Poirot interviews the five witnesses to the murder and reads their (written) verbal accounts of the crime day. By following his psychological method in conjunction with comparing and contrasting the multiple perspectives, Poirot reconfigures the events which lead to the crime and finally identifies the real murderer through reinterpreting the crime scene with the help of both what the witnesses acknowledge in their oral and verbal narratives and what they do not say. The total narrative structure, configured by the omniscient narrator’s and/or implied author’s perspective, also privileges Poirot’s perspective towards the narrative theme or object.

Anahtar Kelimeler: Narratology, (Closed) Perspective Structure, Crime Fiction, Five Little Pigs, Agatha Christie

This essay examines the double-layered perspective structure in Agatha Christie’s Five Little Pigs (Murder in Retrospect). Poirot's technique for solving the old mystery is to apply a multiperspectival mode of narration. In addition to talking with the related law officials who dealt with the Crale case at the time of its trial, Poirot interviews the five witnesses to the murder and reads their (written) verbal accounts of the crime day. By following his psychological method in conjunction with comparing and contrasting the multiple perspectives, Poirot reconfigures the events which lead to the crime and finally identifies the real murderer through reinterpreting the crime scene with the help of both what the witnesses acknowledge in their oral and verbal narratives and what they do not say. The total narrative structure, configured by the omniscient narrator’s and/or implied author’s perspective, also privileges Poirot’s perspective towards the narrative theme or object.

Keywords: Narratology, (Closed) Perspective Structure, Crime Fiction, Five Little Pigs, Agatha Christie