D e a t h o n t h e n i l e - Veritas Press

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novelist, judged Death on the Nile to be among the ten greatest mystery novels of all time. Christie herself noted Death on the Nile as holding a and He took it ...
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What motivates a murderer? Is it greed? Is it lust? Power? Revenge? The question of murder always goes back to the early chapters of Genesis, when the first murder occurred. Every murderer is a Cain and under the curse of God. Every murder victim is an Abel whose blood cries out to God for justice. Cain was the first son of Adam. The promise of God had been that a Seed would come from Eve and crush the head of the serpent, but instead of her firstborn seed crushing the serpent, he embraced the serpent. Instead of ruling over evil, Cain invited the evil in, and he was cursed like the dragon before him and driven from the land of the living. The name Adam literally means “man,” and frequently in the Old Testament, a “son of

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Adam” is translated “son of man.” To label someone a son of Adam, a son of man, is to label him as Cain, a son of the Fall, a murderous brother. There was another Son of Man who was also born of a woman, but this Cain ruled over the sin that crouched at His door. This Cain did not allow the dragon in; this Cain fought the dragon and won. But this Cain became an Abel, and was slain for all the sons of Adam. And when this Cain died, He took all evil and sin into Himself,

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and He took it into Himself not so that it could find a home but so that it might finally be destroyed. For when this Son of Man died, sin died with Him. Death on the Nile is in many ways a traditional detective mystery novel. We know that someone is going to be murdered. But every good murder mystery is always a faint reflection of the story of history. It’s always a story of the murderer being revealed, justice being done, and the wisdom and wit of the hero leading us to the truth.

She was the writer of many great mysteries and so created many great characters. Her other great detective is Miss Jane Marple, an elderly lady in a small English village, who most people ignore as a doddering senior citizen but who always finds the killer. Much of Agatha Christie’s life and experiences are seen in the settings and characters of her novels. She traveled extensively, and even some of the more difficult experiences of her life can be found as echoes in her novels. Christie lived through both World Wars and witnessed the many challenges and transitions of those periods. She served as a nurse during World War I and found it very rewarding. Some years after the war her eneral nformation first husband was unfaithful and divorced her. Author and Context She married Max Mallowan, an archaeologist, in 1930. Knowledge of medicine, Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller was wounds, history, not to mention perborn on September 15, 1890, the sonal experience with love and third child of a fairly affluent fambetrayal, are significant themes ily. While she would not have in a number of Christie novels, been old enough at the time to Death on the Nile no less than appreciate them, her family’s others. dinner parties included such Christie was wildly popuesteemed literary giants as lar and successful during Henry James and Rudyard her own lifetime, and is still Kipling. Her father died known for the eighty myswhen she was eleven, leavtery novels she wrote and a ing the family in a hard number of highly successspot, and eventually she and ful stage plays. Her stage her mother moved to Egypt play Mousetrap is the lonand rented out their home gest running play ever, still in England. She married running as of this writing. Archibald Christie in 1914. Christie received a number of While she would eventually awards during her life: a Combe known formally as Lady mander of the Order of the BritMallowan (taking her second ish Empire in 1956, President of husband’s last name), she has althe Detection Club in 1957, a Dame ways been known popularly around Agatha Commander of the Order of the Britthe world as Agatha Christie and playChristie ish Empire in 1971. Agatha Christie died fully as the Duchess of Death. She also on January 12, 1976. authored romances under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott. Christie’s first novel was The Mysterious Affair at Styles, published in 1920, which introduced and started the career of her fictional Belgian detective Significance hero Hercule Poirot (pronounced “Airkewl Pwa-ro”) who Agatha Christie deserves recognition for the broad would go on to star in 33 novels and 54 short stories. By popularity and appeal she had throughout so much of the end of the 1930s she would begin to grow tired of the twentieth century. Guinness Book of World Records Poirot, but she is said to have been concerned to please ranks her with William Shakespeare as having sold more the public who so enjoyed the character. As the final epi- books than any other author. It lists only the Bible as havsode in the Poirot series, she wrote Curtain during World ing more sales. John Dickson Carr, a celebrated detective War II, but it was sealed in a bank vault for over thirty novelist, judged Death on the Nile to be among the ten years until 1975. greatest mystery novels of all time. Poirot, however, is not Christie’s only great detective. Christie herself noted Death on the Nile as holding a

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Death on the Nile special place in her own mind: “I think, myself, that the book is one of the best of my ‘foreign travels’ ones. I think the central situation is intriguing and has dramatic possibilities, and the three characters, Simon, Linnet, and Jacqueline, seem to me to be real and alive.”1 Death on the Nile not only enjoys favorite status by Christie, but it is also the favorite of many fans and critics alike. Today there are Death on the Nile Cruises which offer the opportunity for vacationers to not only enjoy a cruise on the Nile, but also the intrigue and fun of a murder mystery aboard the ship. Actors and actresses play their parts aboard the cruisers, and vacationers are called on to act as detectives to solve the crime.

Summary and Setting As has already been noted, the rich and beautiful Linnet Ridgeway steals the fiancé of her best friend, Jacqueline de Bellefort. The Doyles are on their honeymoon in Egypt, taking a cruise on the Nile, and to their great dismay they are being stalked by Jacqueline. And the rest of the colorful cast aboard the Karnak brings a host of their own tangles with them. After Jacqueline finally does seem to crack, pulling out a gun and shooting Simon in the leg, she is taken back to her room and kept under observation. The next morning Linnet Doyle is found dead in her cabin, shot in the head.

Main Characters As might be expected, Hercule Poirot, the careful and brilliant detective, is the most important character in the novel. In the opening chapter we are introduced to Linnet Ridgeway (later Linnet Doyle) by two townsfolk discussing her wealth and her beauty. Her best friend, Jacqueline de Bellefort, has fallen on hard times in the aftermath of the great stock market crash, and she appears early in the story looking for employment for her fiancé, Simon Doyle. Part 1 ends with the news spreading that the rich and lovely Linnet Ridgeway has married Simon Doyle and is honeymooning in Egypt. In fact, as Part 2 opens, we find the Doyles aboard the S.S. Karnak along with a number of other passengers: Mrs. Allerton and her son, Tim; Linnet’s maid, Louise Bourget; Miss Van Schuyler and her niece, Cornelia Robson; Miss Schuyler’s nurse, Miss Bowers; Salome Otterbourne and her daughter, Rosalie; Linnet’s American lawyer and trustee, Andrew Pennington; a mysterious man named Mr. Ferguson; the archaeologist Signor Richetti; the silent man James Fanthorp; the Austrian Dr. Bessner; and Jacqueline De Bellefort. We meet Joanna Southwood in the first couple of chapters, and we know that she has a somewhat mysterious relationship with Tim Allerton. Colonel Race, a government agent, is also aboard the Karnak tracking an anonymous terrorist of sorts. He becomes the assistant of Poirot as the mystery unfolds. Not to be confused with the hero of our story, Hercules displays amazing feats of strength on this red-figure vase painting. Hercule Poirot, on the other hand, amazes us with intellectual feats using his “little grey cells.”

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While the setting does not appear to play an absolutely essential role in the story, it is nevertheless notable. One aspect of this includes the fact that the Aswan Dam was built on the Nile around the turn of the century. This dam caused the river banks to rise considerably, a fact that is noted in the novel: “There was a savage aspect about the sheet of water in front of them, the masses of rock without vegetation that came down to the water’s edge—here and there a trace of houses abandoned and ruined as a result of the damming up of the waters. The whole scene had a melancholy, almost sinister charm” (Pt. 2, chap. 6). Many villages and archaeological sites were buried beneath the reservoir created by the dam (known as Lake Nasser); only some survived, and that with great effort. The temple of Ramses II at Abu Simbel was perhaps the greatest site along the Nile, and it was preserved by cutting it into some 950 pieces, hoisting them up the banks to a new sight safely away from the edge of the river, and reassembling them. There is something haunting, something sinister in the waters covering those houses and ruins. And one wonders if there are parallels underlying Death on the Nile.

“O’er Egypt’s land of memory floods are level, And they are thine, O Nile! and well thou knowest The soul-sustaining airs and blasts of evil, And fruits, and poisons spring where’er thou flowest.” —Percy Bysshe Shelley Still a popular destination for holiday cruisers, the Nile exudes an aura of exotic mystery.

Worldview G.K. Chesterton once wrote that the “first essential value of the detective story lies in this, that it is the earliest and only form of popular literature in which is expressed some sense of the poetry of modern life.”2 So detective stories reveal the poetry of modern life. They do this by hiding the truth and then proceeding to slowly and methodically uncover it. W.H. Auden defined the plot of a detective novel as “a murder occurs, many are suspected; all but one suspect, who is the murderer, are eliminated; the murderer is arrested or dies.”3 Another commentator says that a detective story may be defined as “a tale in which the primary interest lies in the methodical discovery, by rational means, of the exact circumstances of a mysterious event or series of events.”4 In other words, the primary point of a detective mystery novel is the dénouement. This is a French word which means “to untie,” from Old French and Latin roots associated with untying knots. The dénouement is the outcome or resolution of the central plot in literature or drama. And that is precisely what a detec-

Death on the Nile tive novel is all about. Detective novels are frequently almost entirely all dénouement, all untying, all unraveling. Everyone knows that someone will die fairly early on and by the end the brilliant detective will have uncovered the truth, but the story is all about the unearthing of the truth. While all stories usually have some sort of dénouement, some sort of resolution, many other genres spend more time leading up to a climax through rising action and the resolution comes at the end, pulling the loose ends all together. And while the detective novel also follows this pattern in some ways, in another sense, for the detective novel, the plot is the resolution. The rising action is the slow uncovering of information leading up to the final revelation of “whodunit.” Poirot describes this very process of dénouement with archaeological imagery toward the end of the novel. His friend and assistant, Colonel Race, is growing frustrated with the case (and with Poirot) because all of the most likely suspects, for all their faults and other crimes, have not yet been pegged with the murder of Linnet. “Why all this beating about the bush?” Race asks, and Poirot responds,

You think that I am just amusing myself with side issues? And it annoys you? But it is not that. Once I went professionally to an archaeological expedition—and I learnt something there. In the course of an excavation, when something comes up out of the ground, everything is cleared away very carefully all around it. You take away the loose earth, and you scrape here and there with a knife until finally your object is there, all alone, ready to be drawn and photographed with no extraneous matter confusing it. That is what I have been seeking to do—clear away the extraneous matter so that we can see the truth—the naked shining truth (Pt. 2, chap. 27). A detective story is a riddle, and the fun of the riddle is found in the fact that certain rules must ordinarily be observed. The riddle must be solved through erudition, logic, and meticu-

lously observing the tendencies of people. Mary Wagoner points out that in Death on the Nile there is particular attention paid to a number of relationships that revolve around tensions with power and authority. Of the sixteen people on board the Karnak, most of them are struggling with wielding authority, enduring unjust authority, or preparing to rebel against it. Linnet Ridgeway is the most powerful of all the characters. She is powerful in riches, in beauty, and in intelligence. And she bends all of these gifts to serve her purposes. Jacqueline has power in her will, in her determination and relentlessness to achieve her goals. Poirot himself is looked up to by all. He is as famous as Linnet Ridgeway, an intellectual celebrity, but his authority ultimately rests in the truth, in his ability to unearth the original players and actions. In addition to Poirot, there are mothers who are authoritarian or meddlesome and their children, who struggle in various ways beneath them; Mr. Pennington, Linnet’s guardian; Mr. Fanthorp, the representative of Linnet’s English solicitor; there is Mr. Ferguson, a socialist revolutionary; and an old, wealthy woman who constantly complains and manipulates the people under her. Part of the challenge of Death on the Nile, like many murder mystery tales, is all the suspects. Death on the Nile is packed with people, too many people, too many stories colliding. And of course that is part of the fun. There’s a crowded room, a crime is committed, and you have a front row seat to the investigation. As Poirot unravels the facts, we find that it is not so simple as one bad guy, lots of innocent bystanders, and an innocent victim or two. While this is not always the case in Christie novels, Death on the Nile explores the complications of crime and sin when everyone is a sinner, when there are several criminals, and even when the victim is not at all very innocent. And this becomes both a challenge for readers and part of the poetry of the story. There isn’t really any character who seems altogether sympathetic. Everyone has flaws; everyone has weaknesses. Even the hero, Hercule Poirot, is not particularly winsome. He’s brilliant and smart, but he does not appear to be a great man. He seems odd, a little picky and irritable in places, and in the end he even seems a little ambivalent to justice and overly pessimistic. The name Hercule Poirot is not unrelated to his character. The first name “Hercule” conjures up Hercules, the Greek adventurer and warrior, while a poirot is something of a buffoon. And thus we have the juxtaposition of the fierce and valiant son of the gods with a “funny little man” with a black mustache who puts all his ability in his “little grey cells” and occasionally borders on being annoying with his overly fastidious nature. One commentator goes so far as to suggest that Poirot has something of the feminine in his style and methods. Throughout the novels,

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The jackal-headed Anubis, Egyptian god of the dead, was guardian of the underworld and associated with the mummification process.

Poirot frequently notices details that we would ordinarily credit a woman with noticing. In Death on the Nile, this manifests itself in the curious notice of a fingernail polish. Would an ordinary man be bothered by the presence of two bottles of nail polish and notice a slight difference in color? Poirot was, and that is how he came to examine the bottles and find a telling clue. All of these elements in Death on the Nile actually blend together quite nicely. Let’s see: a story full of flawed characters, where power struggles, resistance, and manipulation figure prominently, and by the time it’s all over, several corpses are being carried ashore. It sounds a lot like the world we live in, the story of history. Of course, the story of the world is a mystery. God is the genius story teller, and he knows all the answers to all the riddles, all the mysteries. And yet God also loves the story, loves the mystery, and has written Himself into the story. Like Hercule Poirot, the story of history is God the Spirit, digging away at a treasure, a fossil, brushing away the dirt, clearing away debris, unearthing His glory in the world through the intrigue and fallible stories of His people. While there are a number of important scenes and conversations in the first part of the book, one occurs when the reader is introduced to Hercule Poirot in the restaurant Chez Ma Tante. While the detective is there taking in the crowd, he notices one couple dancing who end up sitting at a table near him. While Poirot does not yet know who the couple are, readers quickly realize that this is Jackie, Linnet’s best friend and her fiancé, of whom she has already spoken to Linnet about, Simon Doyle. Even as Poirot watches them, he notes to himself, “She cares too much, that little one,” and he adds, “It is not safe. No it is not safe.” Poirot is suspicious of Jacqueline’s love for Simon here, and by the end of the story he concludes, “That is why most great love stories are tragedies.” There are several references to the Bible throughout the novel. There is an explicit reference to the David and Bathsheba story and to Nathan’s confrontation of David in particular (2 Sam. 11–12), as well as the incident with Ahab and Naboth’s vineyard (1 Kings 21). In both episodes there is murder, of course, but both also highlight the misuse of power in taking advantage of the weak. A less explicit reference to Scripture is in Poirot’s warning to Jacqueline, when he urges her not to seek her revenge against Simon and Linnet. “Do not open your heart to evil,” he urges Jackie, “Because—if you do—evil will come . . . Yes, very surely evil will come . . . It will enter in and make its home within you, and after a little while it will no longer be possible to drive it out.” This is very close to God’s own warning to Cain in Genesis 4: “If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you

Death on the Nile should rule over it” (Gen. 4:7). Like Poirot’s warning, God urges Cain not to allow evil through the door, to make its home within him. For if sin and evil are allowed in, they will rule over him. The wording here is exactly parallel to one of the curses in Genesis 3 where God says that sin will create a particular kind of adversity between a husband and a wife, where a woman’s desire will be for her husband, and he shall rule over her (Gen. 3:16). Poirot appears to be overly pessimistic. It may be true that many great love stories have had tragic elements, but we know that the story of the world is the greatest love story, the story of God’s love for the world and the giving of His Son for us. And that story is not a tragedy but a comedy, a story that ends in a wedding and in joy. Yet Poirot’s suspicions with regard to misplaced love seem consistent with Scripture. Recognizing that love is Jackie’s problem, he warns her, “Love is not everything, Mademoiselle . . . It is only when we are young that we think it is.” This is why the greatest commandment is to love God with all that we are. Anything less than whole-hearted devotion to God is dangerous. It is not safe. But our love for God is of course all the result of His love for us. He has sought us out in Jesus; we love Him because He loved us first. And this love is to die for. He came to be a righteous Cain, to rule evil and put it to death in His death. In order for Jesus to rule over evil, He had to be a wise king. Like a greater Solomon, Jesus was anointed with the Spirit of Wisdom and knew that to destroy all sin and death and evil, He had to take these things into Himself and die. He had to die like a murderer, for all murder to be destroyed. And the glory of it all is that in the death of Christ, true power was revealed. When Jesus was lifted up on the cross, He was revealed to be the Messiah, the true King of Israel. And it is this enthronement on the cross, the wisdom of God revealed in the death of Jesus, that answers the curse of sin on the woman. In the death Christ, He took a bride to Himself, the Christian Church (Eph. 5:2, 25). And that Bride is being revealed as the wisdom of God; the church united to Christ is where the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found. She is where God’s glory is being revealed from glory to glory. By the power of the

Spirit her desire is for her Husband, but He rules her in wisdom and has exalted her and seated her with Him in the heavenly places to reign with Him until every enemy has been put down. Death on the Nile is not high art. Christie was not producing great literature in her mystery novels, but the mass production and hugely popular following of fans certainly reveals something “classic” about them. People are attracted to the universal themes of love and greed, loyalty and betrayal, and the multiplicity of ways humans have to take perfectly wonderful things and turn them into horrific tales of sadness and misery. There is also something fundamentally true about a mystery. It’s the glory of God to conceal a matter, but it is the glory of kings to search it out (Prov. 25:2). There is something built into humans created in the image of God, a certain nobility, that loves a good challenge, a good mystery. And perhaps that is something of the poetry of a detective story, something of the glory in a mystery. Kings are called to wisdom, and wisdom must be searched out, untied, and unearthed. In Christ, we have all been made kings and called into that great treasure hunt, the adventure of life, the mystery of the universe which ultimately finds all dénouement, all resolution, and every solution in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And that is the naked shining truth. —Toby J. Sumpter

For Further Reading Most, Glen W., and Stowe, William W. The Poetics of Murder. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers, 1983. Murch, A.E. The Development of the Detective Novel. London: Peter Owen Limited, 1968. Osborne, Charles. The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001.

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Session I: Prelude Question to Consider

What is power?

From the General Information above answer the following questions:

1. How did Agatha Christie’s life inform her writing? 2. What is dénouement in literature and drama? 3. How is a detective novel in one sense almost entirely dénouement? 4. What biblical allusions appear in Death on the Nile? How are they significant? 5. How might Poirot be accused of being somewhat feminine? How does that fit with the idea of wisdom? 6. What is the glory of God and the glory of kings (Prov. 25:2)? How does that fit with wisdom?

Reading Assignment:  eath on the Nile, Part 1– D Part 2, chapter 3

2. Poirot says that Linnet is upset because she feels guilty. What is our culture’s view of guilt?

Biblical Analysis 1. Read Psalm 51. The note at the beginning of the Psalm says that this was the prayer of David after Nathan the prophet confronted David about his sin with Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah. What does David’s prayer of confession teach us about guilt with regard to sins committed against other people? 2. Read Josh. 7 and Acts 5:1–11. What are some of the similarities between the two stories? What do both of these stories teach regarding hiding sin?

Summa Write an essay or discuss this question, integrating what you have learned from the material above.

What’s the difference between obeying out of guilt and obeying out of gratitude?

Reading Assignment: Death on the Nile, Part 2, chapters 4–10

Session II: Discussion Part 1 – Part 2 chapter 3

A Question to Consider

Session III: Recitation Death on the Nile, Part 2, chapters 4–10

When is it the hardest to do what is right?

Comprehension Questions

Discuss or list short answers to the following questions:

Answer the following questions for factual recall:

Text Analysis 1. What does Joanna Southwood tell Linnet she would do if Linnet lost all her money? 2. What does Linnet notice that Jacqueline does which she remembers as being “characteristic of her?” 3. What does Poirot overhear Jacqueline and Simon talking about at the Chez Ma Tante restaurant? 4. What makes Mr. Andrew Pennington angry? And what does he decide to do? 5. Why is Jim Fanthorp sent to Egypt? 6. What reason does Poirot say is causing Linnet to feel guilty? What does Poirot agree to do for Linnet?

Cultural Analysis 1. Linnet says that an engagement is not really binding, and therefore it was actually heroic and right for Simon to break it off with Jacqueline since he had discovered that he really loved Linnet. Would our culture agree with Linnet?

1. According to Jacqueline, why did Simon Doyle leave her for Linnet Ridgeway? 2. When Poirot asks Simon Doyle if there’s any of the “old feeling left” for Jacqueline, how does Doyle respond? Why is Poirot startled by his answer? 3. What does Simon Doyle plan to do in order to give the slip to Jacqueline? 4. In chapter 7, what does Poirot hear as he is drifting off to sleep? 5. While Linnet is signing papers with Mr. Andrew Pennington, what does Mr. Fanthorp say and do that seems to annoy Mr. Pennington? 6. While out touring the great temple of the Ramses, what near-miss occurs? 7. What old acquaintance shows up aboard the Karnak? Why is he aboard?

Reading Assignment: Death on the Nile, Part 2, chapters 11–16

Death on the Nile

C h a rt 1 : Character Analysis

Character Personality Possible Motive

Alibi

Questions/ suspicions

Jackie De Bellefort

She tried to shoot Simon, missed, and has been under surveillance since.

She’s been talking about getting revenge and killing the Doyles.

Hot, fiery, jealous

Jealousy

Andrew Pennington

He has no clear alibi, although he says he was writing in his room when the murder occurred.

Mr. Ferguson

He has no clear alibi.

Signor Richetti

He has no clear alibi.

James Fanthorp

Why did he rush down to be on the cruise after hearing that Mr. Pennington was also along?

Simon Doyle

Is he really so cruel to have betrayed Jackie for Linnet?

Marie (Former Maid)

Not on board the Karnak (although her former fiancé was)

Joanna Southwood

Not on board the Karnak

Dr. Bessner

No clear motive

Session IV: Activity Planning a Detective Novel Imagine that you are preparing to write a detective/ mystery novel like Death on the Nile. On one page, sketch

out the basic plot of the story, all of the main characters, and the resolution. Give enough detail to show how the various characters will make the real perpetrator difficult to identify. Or find a murder mystery game to play as a class or with your family. Try to use as many names and situ-

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ations from Death on the Nile as possible. Discuss factors such as motives, opportunity, methods, and various circumstances that make suspects more or less likely to have committed the crime.

Reading Assignment:  eath on the Nile, Part 2, D chapters 17–23

Session V: Character Analysis Deduction Fill in Chart 1 to help you remember and identify the various characters. After completing the chart take a thoughtful guess as to who murdered Linnet Ridgway. Our next session will be a student-led discussion. As you are reading the following assignment, you should write down at least three questions from the text dealing with the issue listed below. These questions will be turned in to the teacher and will be used in classroom discussion. To get full credit for these Text Analysis questions you must create a question that is connected to the reading and to the issue that is the focus of our discussion; you must

also answer the question correctly (and include a page or line reference at the end); and your question must be one that invites discussion and debate (“why” questions are excellent; questions that can be answered by “yes” or “no” are to be avoided). You should also provide two Cultural Analysis and two Biblical Analysis questions. Cultural Analysis questions ask how our culture views the issue that we are discussing. Biblical Analysis questions ask what the Bible says concerning this issue. Again, to get full credit for each question, you must create questions connected to the issue we are studying, answer each question correctly and create questions that encourage and invite discussion and exploration. For an example of each type of question and answer refer to the examples provided in the next session. If you are working alone, after creating your questions and answers, have your parent or tutor check over them. Also, if possible, share them with your family at the dinner table, helping them to understand why the issue is important, how the issue arises in your reading, how its importance is still evident in our culture, and how understanding this issue might change the way you and your family should think and live.

Issue Justice and Punishment

Reading Assignment: Death on the Nile, Part 2, chapters 24–30

To control flooding on the Nile River, the British built the Aswan Low Dam in 1902. Over the years this proved inadequate, so a second dam was completed farther upstream in 1970. To prevent the temples of Ramses II at Abu Simbel from being covered by the lake that resulted, they were moved and reassembled further from the water’s edge on higher ground.

Death on the Nile

Session VI: Student-Led Discussion

Optional Session A: Recitation

A Question to Consider

Comprehension Questions



Answer the following questions for factual recall:

Death on the Nile, Part 2, chapters 24–30

In order to achieve justice, must punishment occur?

Students should read and consider the example questions below that are connected to the Question to Consider above. Last session’s assignment was to prepare three questions and answers for the Text Analysis section and two additional questions and answers for both the Cultural and Biblical Analysis sections below.

Text Analysis Example: How is Mr. Allerton a criminal? Is he punished for his crime? Answer: Mr. Allerton is a thief, and he has stolen a pearl necklace from the deceased Linnet Doyle. He is not punished for his crime. He flings the fake string of pearls into the river, and Poirot lets him off the hook since he was not Linnet’s murderer.

Cultural Analysis Example: What does our culture think about punishment and justice? Answer: Our culture puts a lot more emphasis on rehabilitation than on punishment. Retributive justice has been replaced by protection and re-education.

Biblical Analysis Example: How can Christians not worry about punishing personal offenses (Rom. 12:17–21)? Answer: Paul says that we should do good to those who do us wrong since we know that God is the God of vengeance. He will repay. Other Scriptures to consider: Romans 13:4

Summa Does the coming of Jesus change how we should view crime, justice and punishment?

 Write an essay or discuss this question, integrating what you have learned from the material above.

Death on the Nile, Part 2, chapters 24–30

1. What does Mr. Ferguson think about the three murders? 2. Who was “practically ruined” by Linnet’s father? 3. Why is Mr. Fanthorp on board the Karnak? How did Poirot come to suspect his involvement? 4. What is Mr. Tim Allerton’s relationship with Joanna Southwood? 5. Who killed Linnet Doyle? How? 6. Who killed Louise Bourget and Madame Otterbourne? Why? 7. How do Jackie and Simon end up at the end of the book?

Endnotes 1 Cited in Osborne, Charles. The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001. 147. 2 “In Defence of the Detective Story,” The Defendant, London: Dent, 1901. Cited in Murch, A.E. The Development of the Detective Novel. London: Peter Owen Limited, 1968. 10. 3 Wagoner, Mary. Agatha Christie. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1986. 33. 4 Murch, A.E., 11.

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