A Queer Approach to Agatha Christie, 1920-1952
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A Queer Approach to Agatha Christie, 1920-1952 Submitted by James Carl Bernthal to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English in May 2015 This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. Signature: ………………………………………………………….. 1 2 Abstract This thesis provides the first extensive queer reading of a ‘Golden Age’ British detective fiction writer. The aim of this thesis is to assess queer potential in texts published by Agatha Christie between 1920 and 1952. Human identity can be read as self-consciously constructed in Christie’s novels, which were written in a context of two world wars, advances in technology and communication, and what Michel Foucault called the ‘medicalization’ of Western culture. The self- conscious stereotyping in Christie’s prose undermines her texts’ conservative appeal to the status quo. Chapter One justifies this project’s critique of identity essentialism in the texts by considering the manufacturing of ‘Agatha Christie’ as a widely-read celebrity author. Reading Christie’s authorial identity as something established and refined through a market-driven response to readers’ expectations and a conscious engagement with earlier forms of detective fiction provides space for reading identity itself as a stylized, performative, and sometimes parodic theme within the texts. In subsequent chapters, employing theoretical insights from Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Judith Butler, and Lee Edelman, I explore Christie’s participation in contemporary debates surrounding masculinity, femininity, and the importance of the family in shaping individual identity. Finally, I consider Christie’s reputation in the twenty- first century by exploring nostalgic television adaptations of her work. Comparing the presentation of ‘queer’ characters in the literary texts to the adaptations’ use of explicit homosexual themes and characters, I conclude that there is a stronger potential for ‘queering’ identity in the former. As the first full queer reading of a ‘Golden Age’ detective novelist, this thesis expands queer notions of archive and canonicity: few scholars to date have considered mainstream literary texts without overt LGBTQ+ themes or characters from a queer perspective. Given Christie’s global reach and appeal, locating queerness in her texts means understanding queerness as fundamental to everyday culture. This means engaging with a subversive potential in twentieth century middlebrow conservatism. 3 Acknowledgments Elements of Chapter Two have been published in Clues: A Journal of Detection (2014) and elements of Chapter Three have been published in Women: A Cultural Review (2015). This project would not have been possible without funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, to whom many thanks. I would like to thank my first supervisor, Vike Martina Plock, without whose tireless commitment this thesis would be a shadow of itself. I would also like to thank my second supervisor, Jana Funke, my previous co-supervisor Lisa Downing, and my mentor Elliot Kendall. Thanks, too, to Stacy Gillis and Sally West who helped me shape up my original proposal. Archives have formed a major element of my research and thanks to Christine Faunch and Hannah Lowry I have had made the most of the special collections at the Universities of Exeter and Bristol. I am grateful to Brittain Bright, Sarah Burton, Vike Martina Plock, Chia-Ying Wu, and Christopher Yiannatsaros for allowing me access to their unpublished research. I am thankful to Agatha Christie experts who have shared their vast knowledge and illuminating perspectives in person and via email: Tom Adams, Jared Cade, John Curran, Sophie Hannah, P.D. James, Merja Makinen, and Mathew and Lucy Prichard. The support of family – along with an excess of caffeine – has kept me going throughout the writing process. Thanks to Grandad, Mum, Dad, Deanna, Sam, and Viola. Double thanks to Mum for proof-reading. Special thanks to Alan who makes everything worth it. 4 Table of Contents Introduction .............................................................................................................. 7 Preamble ........................................................................................................................... 7 Treatments of Christie to Date ......................................................................................... 10 Theory: Evaluation and Overview .................................................................................... 18 Chapter Overview ........................................................................................................... 25 The Case of the Middle-Class Wife: Exploiting a Genre and Crafting an Identity... 32 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 32 Reading and Writing ........................................................................................................ 37 Emergence: The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) ......................................................... 41 Parody: The Man in the Brown Suit (1924) ...................................................................... 52 Innovation: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) ............................................................ 62 Ariadne Oliver in Cards on the Table (1936) and Mrs McGinty’s Dead (1952) ................. 69 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 82 ‘Too Much of a Miss Nancy’: English Masculinity and its Others ........................... 85 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 85 Reading Christie, Reading Masculinity ............................................................................ 88 Poirot in Context .............................................................................................................. 94 Men Detecting Men in Cards on the Table (1936) ......................................................... 109 Men Rejecting Men in Murder is Easy (1939) and ‘Three Blind Mice’ (1948) ................. 120 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 131 ‘What Should a Woman Want With These?’: Femininity and Masquerade .......... 135 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 135 Reading Christie, Reading Women ............................................................................... 138 Vera Rossakoff in ‘The Double Clue’ (1923) .................................................................. 146 Lady Edgware in Lord Edgware Dies (1933) ................................................................. 154 Arlena Stuart in Evil Under the Sun (1941) .................................................................... 168 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 175 5 Crooked Houses: Families and Growth after the Second World War .................. 179 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 179 Reading Christie, Reading Families .............................................................................. 182 Some Context ............................................................................................................... 188 Incestuous Desire and Sideways Growth in Sleeping Murder (circa. 1946) ................... 194 The Not-Yet-Straight Child in Crooked House (1949) .................................................... 206 Adoption in They Do It with Mirrors (1952) .................................................................... 218 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 229 ‘Barking Up the Wrong Tree’: Male Sexuality in Agatha Christie’s Poirot and Agatha Christie’s Marple .................................................................................................. 234 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 234 Watching Christie, Reading Sex .................................................................................... 236 Straight Poirot in Context............................................................................................... 244 Poirot: Cards on the Table (2006) ................................................................................. 253 Constructing Closets in St Mary Meade ......................................................................... 264 Marple: The Moving Finger (2006) ................................................................................ 272 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 283 Conclusion ..........................................................................................................