CFP 171: Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple

-Introductions

-Why talk about Miss Marple?

Knowing

-Katie gives brief publication history of Miss Marple

-Laurie gives brief run-down of some of the major Marple adaptations on TV and in film

• The Mirror Crack’d
• Miss Marple (1984)
• Marple

-When did you first encounter Miss Marple? What do you appreciate about her? (Also, who’s your favorite Marple in TV/film adaptations?)

-Alexis gives a short description of Miss Marple and brief plot summaries for our short story, “The Tuesday Night Club”

Reading

-This may seem obvious, but let’s talk for a minute about why everyone in the stories seems to underestimate Miss Marple. Why do they assume she has no knowledge of the world? Is it really all about her small-town upbringing, or do you think it also has something to do with her age and gender?

-What pieces of info in these stories would we consider “women’s knowledge,” and what is just “local person knowledge,” as you have pointed out, Alexis?

-How does Miss Marple compare to Christie’s other most famous detective, Hercule Poirot? In what ways are they both “outsiders,” as Laurie has observed?

-What influence has Miss Marple continued to have on the mystery genre? One example is classic UK series Rosemary and Thyme. Others include…

• Vera
• Prime Suspect
• Murder, She Wrote
• Matlock
• No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
• Columbo
• Gosford Park
• Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe mysteries
• Monk
• Death in Paradise

-What does it say about Christie’s idea of England that all of these heinous crimes happen in such bucolic settings. Poirot travels the world for his mysteries, but Jane just travels the countryside. There’s something going on with Christie’s view of post-war Britain here.

Passing On

Katie: Agatha Christie’s Death Comes as the End (1944)

Alexis: Agatha Christie: An Autobiography

Laurie: “Mother,” (2009), directed by Bong Joon Ho

Also of interest:

CFP #94: Trifles

CFP #162: The Women of Sherlock Holmes

CFP #48: The Feminism of Dorothy Sayers

CFP #75: Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries