| Crime fiction is the literary genre that centers on the investigation of a crime, usually by a detective, professional or amateur, on the basis of logical reasoning and criminal psychology. Crime fiction draws less academic attention than it should do, for it is commonly regarded as one element of popular culture. There are relatively few studies on crime fiction compared with other literary genres. However, as a distinctive genre, crime fiction can provide a typical example of how an author manipulates the reader for plot construction. This paper aims to study Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None from the perspective of foregrounding theory. It attempts to explore how Christie foregrounds the irrelevant or false information and provides the key information in a misleading way on the “pre-solution stage”(in Emmott’s terms) as well as foregrounds the plot-significant information on the “solution stage”(in Emmott’s terms) to manage plot-reversals and justify herself and make the solution credible and text coherent. This paper is to argue that Christie’s writing skills lie greatly in her ways of presenting the information: firstly, set time-consuming red herrings to distract the reader’s attention away from the key information; secondly, use “unreliable narrator” to distort the key information; thirdly,overtly tell the reader the number of the murderers and exclude the possibility of having an accomplice; fourthly, keep the real murderer off the suspect list; fifthly, use ambiguous expressions to manage plot-reversals; lastly, let the murderer admit the crime and give the explanations by himself, and tell the reader the solution is feasible and clever. By successfully designing the twists and turns and managing the plot reversals, crime fiction like And Then There Were None definitely prompts the reader’s interest and gets the reader fully involved in the plot, thus make the fiction-reading fascinating and thrilling. |
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