47 pages • 1 hour read
Agatha ChristieThe Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1926A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Human Capacity for Evil
A recurring theme in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is that all people demonstrate a capacity for evil actions. None of the characters are inherently malicious people, but each comes across hard times in one way or another. In response to their difficult situations, each character acts in a way they may not otherwise. Poirot sets the stage for considering the motives and capacity of each character in the Chapter 17 allegory of the man who gets greedy and kills because of it. It is not the story of Paton nor is it the story of Sheppard. Instead, it is the story of humanity, and several characters express this capacity to different extents.
To a lesser extent, Agatha Christie represents this theme in the character Flora Ackroyd. She expresses the difficulties of her life to Poirot when he confronts her:
You don’t know what my life has been like since I came here. Wanting things, scheming for them, lying, cheating, running up bills, promising to pay—oh! I hate myself when I think of it all (217).
The hardships Flora Ackroyd faces are not uncommon. It is natural for people to want things and to plan how to achieve or acquire them. It is the response and result that distinguishes the person. Flora succumbs to her selfishness in a minor way and steals petty cash from Roger Ackroyd. She is not irredeemable because she gives her reasons for committing wrongs and expresses remorse.
On a larger scale, Sheppard represents the most dramatic capacity for crime by murdering Roger Ackroyd. Sheppard is guilty of at least two crimes—blackmail and murder—and Christie expresses the potential for evil through those acts and the many that follow. Sheppard’s morality is tainted, and he is no longer concerned about deceit, manipulation, or guilt. Sheppard has gone too far and becomes irredeemable. He cannot come back from blackmail and murder; he shows no remorse for what he has done. The only redemption is to minimize the damage to his sister, which he does through death.
Through The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Christie invites the reader to question not only the capacity for violence of the novel’s characters but also the capacity for violence within themselves.
Ethics and the Law
Poirot and Raglan’s approaches to the investigation of the murder of Roger Ackroyd demonstrate the moral complexity of right and wrong. On the side of the law, there is Inspector Raglan. He sees the facts of the case and views them as uncomplicated. Poirot poses questions, and Raglan finds the answer that appeases the law. For example, Raglan draws attention to the footprints outside Fernly Park that match Paton’s shoes. Poirot asks about the other prints, and Raglan dismisses them since “it’s the ones on the windowsill that are important” (97). For Inspector Raglan, the matter is obvious—there are footprints on the windowsill, and they implicate the guilty party. The law agrees, and so the guilty party is clear. The law follows process, and process leads to an undeniable truth. The challenge that Christie presents is that the law, which did morally right by following the evidence, would put an innocent man in jail.
That makes Hercule Poirot and his ethics-based approach a crucial foil to Inspector Raglan’s law-based approach. Poirot uses some morally questionable methods to arrive at the truth. Poirot admits to manipulating Inspector Raglan, “profit[ing] by his state of mental chaos to induce him to grant [him] a favor” (226). The manipulation leads to a larger-scale deception—that Paton is in custody. Poirot’s method works to draw out the necessary information. He represents the greater good and the use of ethics to determine whether a seemingly immoral act is right or wrong in each situation. Through the contrast of Poirot and Raglan, Christie poses a crime-solving dilemma—is committing an otherwise immoral act wrong if it leads to a greater good?
Christie further complicates the matter by having Poirot circumvent the law by allowing Sheppard to die by suicide rather than face the consequences of his actions. Poirot has accomplished his goal by determining the guilty party. The truth is out, and now Poirot wants to consider the implications for the people around the guilty party. The truth is more significant than the law, and Poirot’s final act in this book shows a kindness that the law would not allow.
Shifting Class Relations
Christie’s novel highlights class tensions in 1920s England, most notably in the dynamic between Ursula, Paton, Ackroyd, and Flora. Paton believes that he will lose the respect of his family if his marriage to Ursula becomes public. When he claims that he wants to wait to be financially independent of his stepfather, the implication is that he wants to have his own social and financial standing in society. Paton does not want to depend on Ackroyd’s social status to maintain his own. If Paton can establish himself, it will not matter that his wife comes from a lower class because his position in society is unaffected by the status his wife fails to bring to the relationship. This dynamic creates a hardship for Ursula, who does not want to be the secret wife, particularly when Ackroyd announces Paton and Flora’s engagement.
The fight between Ackroyd and Ursula represents the fight between England’s upper and lower classes. The lower-class side, Ursula’s side, desires to be recognized and accepted by the upper class. They want to be treated equally and have the opportunity to climb the social ladder, and they cannot stand the strict divide between the two classes. The upper class, however, seeks to maintain its position without being brought down by the lower classes.
Social status, though, is nothing more than appearance. Mrs. Ackroyd demonstrates several times that she is not interested in the reality of the situation so long as the illusion is maintained. She questions the connection between her daughter and Paton not because of the lack of love between the two but because of how it will appear to other upper-class individuals that Flora is engaged to a suspected murderer. Even if the allegations are proven false, Paton’s standing in society had fallen, so Flora’s engagement with him would have lowered her image.
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