CHASE’S AND TREVOR'S PROJECT

Murder On The Orient Express

Vocabulary Deception- Noun\ The act of deceiving

someone Lovelorn- Adjective\ Unhappy because of

unrequested love Hymeneal-Adjective\ Of or concerning

marriage Culprit- Noun\ A person responsible for a

crime Deliberate- Verb\ Engage in a long and

careful consideration

Vocabulary continued Pother-Noun\ A commotion Expenditure-Noun\ The action of

spending funds Rationalistic- Noun\ Of or relating to the

philosophical doctrine of rationalism Metaphysics-Noun\ Abstract concepts

such as being and knowing Indignation-Noun\ Anger or annoyance

by unfair treatment

Vocabulary continued Camorras-Noun\ An unscrupulous Speculative-Adjective\ Engaged in or

Expressing Cavorting-Verb\Jumping or dancing around Shrewd- Adjective\Having or showing

sharp powers of judgment Dallying-Verb\Act of or moving slowly Verisimilitude-Noun\The appearance of

being true or real

Van Dine’s Rules1. The reader and the detective must have

equal opportunity to solve the mystery.2. No tricks may be played on the reader other

than those played legitimately by the criminal.3. There can not be love interest in the story.4. The detective or one of the investigators may

not be the culprit.5. The culprit must be determined by deductions

which are logical6. The novel must have a detective in it.

Van Dine’s 20 Rules7. There must be a dead person in the novel.8. The crime must be solved by naturalistic means9. There may only be one detective in the novel.10. The culprit must be someone who has played a prominent part in the story.11. The culprit can not be a servant.12.There may be only one culprit even if there are many deaths in the story.

Van Dines 20 Rules13.Secret societies may have no place in a detective story.14. The method of murder and the detecting must be scientific and rational.15. The truth of the problem must always be apparent.16. Their may be no long descriptive passages in a detective novel.17. A professional criminal may never be assumed guilty of a crime in a detective story.

Van Dine’s 20 Rules 18.The crime must never turn out to be suicide or an accident in the story.19. The motive for the crime must be personal.20. The detective must not determine the criminal by comparing the butt of a cigarette to the brand smoked by the suspect no using spiritual se’ance or forged fingerprints to discover the culprit. You also may not use fake alibis, a dog not barking so it must be someone who it is acquainted with or using knockout drops or hypodermic syringe.

Rule # 7“The Classical List of Rules for the Detective Story”“7. There simply must be a corpse in a detective novel, and the deader the corpse the better. No lesser crime then murder will suffice. Three hundred pages is far too much pother for a crime other than murder. After all, the reader’s trouble and expenditure of energy must be rewarded” (Van Dine).

Explanation Christie’ Murder on the Orient Express

fits Van Dines formula for a detective novel especially when you look at rule #7. Rule # 7 says that there must be a person who is dead in the novel. This novel Murder on the Orient Express because Ratchett is murdered in the story.

Murder on the Orient Express “No. No,” said Poirot. “Your assumption

was quite right. M. Ratchett was murdered. Stabbed. But I should like to know why you were so sure it was murder, and not just-death” (Christie 47).

Rule #4 The detective himself, or one of the

official investigators, should never turn out to be the culprit. This is bald trickery, on a par with offering some one a bright penny for a five-dollar gold piece. It’s false pretenses.” (Van Dine)

Explanation Murder on the Orient Express follows

rule #4. In the end of the story and throughout the story the detective, Poirot, is never suspected of murder. Poirot uses his detective skills to solve the case. He solved the case by deciding that everyone on the train except for him, M. Bouc, and Pierre Michel.

Murder on the Orient Express “Then,” said Poirot, “having placed my

solution before you, I have the honour to retire from the case…”(Christie 245)

Rule #9“There must be but one detective- that is, but

one protagonist one deus ex machina. To bring the minds of three or four, or sometimes a gang of detectives to bear on a problem, is not only to disperse the interest and break the direct thread of logic, but to take an unfair advantage of the reader. If there is more than one detective the reader doesn’t know who his codeductor is. It’s like making the reader run a race with a relay team.” (Van Dine)

Explanation In this detective novel Poroit is the only

detective in the story. You no this because he is the main person interviewing the characters and investigating the murder. If there were anymore detectives in this story then the novel would not fit Dan Vines Rule #9.

Murder on the Orient Express “C’est entendu. You placed the matter in

my hands.” (Christie 43)

Rule #18 “A crime in a detective story must never

turn out to be an accident or a suicide. To end an odyssey of sleuthing with such an anti-climax is to hoodwink the trusting and kind-hearted reader.”(Van Dine”

Explanation This story follows rule #18 because the

person who died in the story was murdered and did not kill themselves. We know that Ratchett was murdered and did not commit suicide because he was stabbed 12 times and no person can stab themselves after they have died.

Murder on the Orient Express “The door was locked and chained on

the inside,” said Poirot thoughtfully. “It was not suicide-eh?” (Christie 41)

Rule #19 “The motives for all crimes in detective

stories should be personal. International plottings and war politics belong in a different category of fiction-in secret-service tales, for instance. But a murder story must be kept gemutlich, so to speak. It must reflect the reader’s everyday experiences, and give him a certain outlet for his own repressed desires and emotions.” (Van Dine)

Explanation This novel Murder on the Orient Express fits rule

#19 because the motive the murder was very personal. The motive for killing Ratchett was that they all were related to the Armstrong family. Ratchett was the leader of the gang that kidnapped Daisy Armstrong and killed her even after getting the money. Their was a chain reaction of events of death starting after that with the whole family dyeing and the nurse killing herself. The people on the train took it into their own hands and killed Ratchett themselves.

Murder on the Orient Express “we decided then and there (perhaps we

were mad- I don’t know) that the sentence of death that Cassetti had escaped had got to be carried out.” (Christie 243)

Summery Murder on the Orient Express does fit in

with the pattern for Van Dine’s 20 rules. It fits his rules because the story only has one detective, Poirot, and the detective was not the culprit. There was a person killed which was by murder, and the murder was personal, and their was only 1 detective in the novel. All of these points are why this novel follows Van Dines 20 points.

Works Cited

Christie, Agatha. Murder on the Orient

Express. Toronto: Bantam, 1983. Print.

Van Dine, S. S. ""Twenty Rules for Writing

Detective Stories"" American Magazine

Sept. 1928: n. pag. Web.