7. Ten Little Indians

Book: Ten Little Indians

Author: Agatha Christie

Number of pages: 173

What I’m watching: TV: How I Met Your Mother Movies: First Men in the Moon, The Swan Princess, And Then There Were None¹

What I’m playing: Dead Space 3, God of War 3, Skyrim

 

 

 

            Alright, now that I have zero homework, I am prepared to start knocking out some novels from my unread shelves. I’ve seen the film And Then There Were None, based on the book, but this was my first time reading the novel. There’s a 48 page reader’s supplement inserted in the book, which oddly enough, I have read. I read it for a paper I did on Agatha Christie, “The Dame that Came from Devon.” I wanted to find that paper because I don’t remember anything about it apart from the title, but I don’t think I saved a copy. The insert is pretty much a little background, pictures from the film, and short reviews of the novel.

            Ten Little Indians is a murder mystery, a genre at which Christie is superb. The back cover made it seem like the book had a different ending than the film, which renewed my intrigue toward the mystery. What’s more, Agatha Christie prefaces the novel with dramatic character descriptions such as “Emily Brent – A sixty-five-year-old spinster whose troubled dreams and rambling diary were the only indications of a disturbed – and perhaps dangerous – mind” and “Dr. Armstrong – At first the physician was a convenient dispenser of sedatives and diagnostician of causes of death, but later the others remembered that he was the only one who had easy access to poison” (Pocket Books 5). These did a wonderful job of priming me for the story. One thing was odd, though. Christie also included for each character the page of his or her first appearance. I’ve never seen that before in a book.

            The book opens with eight characters all mysteriously invited to Indian Island, coaxed either by a mention of an old friend or the promise of money. Agatha Christie excels at her characterizations. Simply the way each person travels indicates something. The people who came for the money are in a third-class train car. Anthony Marston raced to the boat in his fancy car, a character detail I will explain in a bit. Ten Little Indians has a lot of exposition, but Agatha Christie keeps it clever and entertaining.

            So, they all get to the island, which is nothing but bare rock except for the mansion and its two caretakers, Mr. and Mrs. Rogers. Turns out nobody has met the owner of the house, not even the Rogerses, who were only hired days ago. The mysterious host has yet to arrive. Before long, a recorded voice accusing all the guests and the servants of murder is heard on the gramophone. Throughout the play, the truth of each accusation is first denied then discovered.

            What loosens their tongues are the murders. One by one, the ten people on the island start meeting their deaths. It starts with Marston, guilty of running down two children in his speeding car, choking from poison. Each death follows an old nursery rhyme hung up all around the house, “Ten Little Indians:”

            Ten little Indian boys went out to dine;

            One choked his little self and then there were nine.

            Nine little Indian boys sat up very late;

            One overslept himself and then there were eight.

            Eight little Indian boys traveling in Devon;

            One said he’d stay there and then there were seven.

            Seven little Indian boys chopping up sticks;

            One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.

            Six little Indian boys playing with a hive;

            A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.

            Five little Indian boys going in for law;

            One got in Chancery and then there were four.

            Four little Indian boys going out to sea;

            A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.

            Three little Indian boys walking in the Zoo;

            A big bear hugged one and then there were two.

            Two little Indian boys sitting in the sun;

            One got frizzled up and then there was one.

            One little Indian boy left all alone;

            He went and hanged himself and then there were none. (28)

Chancery, as I looked up, refers to an English court. The host, U. N. Owen (a pseudonym), got all ten guests on the island to exact a personal justice on people who escaped the legal system. However, after a thorough search of Indian Island, the group finds that they are alone. Turns out Mr. Owen is one of the ten accused people. Ten Little Indians is a great murder mystery, so I don’t want to spoil a lot of details about who dies and who’s the killer.

            There are some things I do want to talk about. Two characters use the phrase “There’s a nigger in the woodpile” (31; 74). I tried looking up what that even means, and I guess it might have to do with escaped slaves hiding in woodpiles. Though the characters exhibit some racism, I wouldn’t say Agatha Christie comes off as racist herself. At least one character speaks against prejudice:

     Emily Brent‘s brow, which had been frowning perplexedly, cleared. She said, “Ah, I understand you now. Well, there is Mr. Lombard. He admits to having abandoned twenty men to their deaths.”

                 Vera said, “They were only natives…”

                 Emily Brent said sharply, “Black or white, they are our brothers.” (69)

So, the racism in Ten Little Indians is only in beliefs held by certain characters, unlike Hilda Manning’s inherent racism that was reflected in her play.²

            Since this is a plot I don’t want to ruin, I won’t say much more. The plot of the book is almost exactly like the movie, so there were some parts that dragged for me since I knew what was going to happen or not happen. The fruitless search of the island, for example. However, had I not known what would happen, I’m sure it all would have been much more suspenseful. The mystery was still pretty thrilling, even though I knew all the answers.

I want to mention the focus placed on meals throughout the ordeal. Pretty much every breakfast, lunch, and dinner reveals the atmosphere of the group. Sometimes they’re quiet over their food, other times talkative, sometimes conversation is strained. Mealtime is a great place to reflect the current mood. The characters are also constantly drinking to calm their nerves while everyone around them is dying. Alcohol is pretty much the cure-all. For a murder mystery, I found it funny how much time everyone spent eating and drinking. Then again, as Lombard said, “Let’s eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Or who knows, perhaps, even today” (Samuel French 61). But wait a minute, Lombard didn’t say that in the novel…

 

Verdict (Is the book staying or going?): Staying.

 

He said it in the stage version. Bonus book! I also have (but haven’t read) Ten Little Indians, the script!

 

Book: Ten Little Indians

Author: Agatha Christie

Number of pages: 97

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            I’ve seen the movie and read the book. They had their differences. Now I’ve got the stage version.³ Would anything else be different? Would the entire ending change? A lot of the names change. Some of the victims’ names and the ways the guests die are different, too. The occasional typo doesn’t help. Blore’s victim starts as “Lendor” (26), then becomes “Landor” (38), and finishes as “Lander” (38). Another instance of a typo is when the speaker is supposed to switch to Lombard, but it remains Blore’s line, so at one point it’s written that Blore says, “I suspect Sir Lawrence. Blore suspects me” (75). Of course, there are more changes than just in the names.

            The entire play is set in the mansion’s main room along with a connecting balcony behind it. That definitely changes a lot of the action. Plus, Mr. Owen would be poisoning Marston in front of the audience, although I’m sure it’d be inconspicuous. The murder of Emily Brent also happens onstage, and I wonder how that would be accomplished without the audience or other characters onstage noticing. Marston is pretty annoying in the play. He calls everything “wizard.” The mansion’s wizard, Vera’s wizard, his car is wizard…I don’t feel like counting any more up. Dr. Armstrong says Wargrave looks likes a tortoise (17), which makes me think of Yertle the Turtle, who acts as a judge in Seussical the Musical.

            Agatha Christie does a good job moving all the action into the room, allowing some action to happen in between scenes are on the balcony. However, some parts of the novel had to be taken out altogether, which is too bad. Of course, the biggest difference of all is the lack of inner monologue.

Without inner monologue, Scrubs would mostly be JD staring at nothing.

Following people’s thoughts as they tried solving the whodunit or as they descended into madness was a huge part of the novel, but third person quasi-omniscience isn’t possible (or at least it’s very difficult – a lot of asides and other techniques) to translate onto a stage. A great deal of characterization got lost in translation. No one ever read the whole “Ten Little Indians” rhyme aloud in the play. I wonder if it would be included in the playbill/program. I like that idea, letting the audience follow along and wonder what’ll happen next.

            After my comment about alcohol as a cure-all, I got a laugh from one of Vera’s lines:

                 LOMBARD. I say, you do look low. How about a drink to steady your

            nerves?

     VERA. (Rises, flaring up) A drink! Two corpses in the house at nine o’clock in the morning and all you say, “Have a drink”! An old man going quite crackers – “Have a drink”! Ten people accused of murder – that’s all right – just have a drink. Everything’s fine so long as you have a drink. (57)

I still stand by what I said about Ten Little Indians focusing on eating and drinking because only a few pages later, Vera changes her mind:

     VERA. (To WARGRAVE) You were right to insist on our going to lunch – and drinking some brandy with it. I feel better.

     WARGRAVE. (Returns to coffee tray – takes his own coffee; stands by mantelpiece) The court always adjourns for lunch. (63)

It’s not important, but the amount of eating and drinking stood out to me.

            So, there are a lot of minute details which got switched around, slightly altered, or taken out, but the ending is very different than the novel. Sadly for my blog, I don’t want to risk spoiling anything of the ending, so I will stay silent. I will say the play’s ending is close to the 1945 movie.

            One last thing I want to mention. Apparently, the novel and play first got published under the title “Ten Little Niggers,” as mentioned on the script’s inside title page. That would result in a much more frequent and casual use of the pejorative word throughout the novel and play. Then again, does that reflect racism in Agatha Christie? She’s using an old racist nursery rhyme – not her own – as a framework for her murder mystery.

There’s no authorial intrusion to indicate any attitude of Christie. I also ask myself, even though “Indian” might have a less strong connotation than “nigger,” how racist is the title “Ten Little Indians”? Does that title carry any less racist overtones? Am I just more sensitized to the n-word? I don’t know. I still believe that the racism in Ten Little Indians is held by the characters, but not in Agatha Christie herself.

            Bottom line, Ten Little Indians is an intriguing thriller that I still enjoy.

 

Verdict (Is the book staying or going?): Going. The book was better.

 

Notes 

1. After all my talk of Ten Little Indians, my fiancé and I felt like watching the movie. It’s funny (not haha funny) that she had read the book but not seen the film and I had seen the film but had only just read the book.

2. For more on the subject of racist writing, I recommend Chinua Achebe’s “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness.’”

3. My copy of the script was once used by someone playing the part of Emily Brent.

 

Works Cited 

Christie, Agatha. Ten Little Indians. New York: Pocket Books, 1973. Print.

Christie, Agatha. Ten Little Indians. New York: Samuel French, 1946. Print.