A Study Of Agatha Christie’s Ambivalent View On Feminism-in Endless Night And Evil Under The Sun

Known as the “Mistress of Mystery,” Agatha Christie has obtained global fameby writing detective stories. Being a detective novel writer, Agatha Christie hasn’tabided by the traditional writing pattern for detective stories which focuses on thedetectives, but creates various female images. On one hand, Agatha Christie breaksthe silence of the female in the male-dominated society and awakens the feministconsciousness which, for long, has supported women in winning the rights forreceiving education and entering job market. On the other hand, she emphasizeswomen’s self-sacrifice in marriage to fulfill men’s ambition rather than the absoluteequality between men and women. She regards women as men’s assistants. So, basedon these two aspects, Agatha presents an ambivalent feminist view whichdemonstrates both her feminist and anti-feminist view. But, in fact, whether she is ananti-feminist or a feminist is the everlasting topic among literary critics. So, it isnecessary to study her view on women. In order to prove Agatha Christie’sambivalent feminist view, this paper intends to interpret two of her mostrepresentative works Evil under the Sun and Endless Night in combination with herbiography from the feminist perspective.This thesis contains four parts. In Chapter One, Agatha’s feminist view isconvectively shown through the image of a less heroic detective, a female detectiveand a couple of detectives. In Chapter Two, under the influence of theman-dominated society, Agatha Christie creates many images of house angels andmonsters in her detective novels. In Chapter Three, based on two kinds ofself-ambivalent female images: career women and female murders, Agatha’sambivalent feminist view is mainly demonstrated. In Chapter Four, the origins of herambivalent feminist view are discussed. So, through analyzing various female anddetective images in her detective novels, this thesis will give full revelation andassessment of Agatha Christie’s ambivalent feminist view. Owing to the Victorian tradition, her family background and marriageexperiences, Agatha Christie’s ambivalent attitude towards women is etched on herheart. She pays earnest attention to women’s fate which inspires people at her time aswell as guides us to consider the role women identified in modern time. So, the studyon Agatha’s ambivalent feminist view not only has crucial theoretical value but alsopractical significance.