“Analyse how characters were used to explore the concept of justice.”

Justice is getting what you deserve when you do something wrong, in the case of “And Then There Were None” justice for killing people is to be killed themselves. Agatha Christie is an English writer known for her many detective novels and short story collections which includes “And Then There Were None”. The novel was set in 1939 taking place in “a beautiful mansion on the deserted Shipwreck Island.” The name of the island was then changed to Soldier Island when the new owner purchased the island. Shipwreck Island foreshadows that the guests can easily be trapped on the island which was perfect for the murderer since the guests couldn’t be rescued and murder could successfully carry out justice. In this novel, there are many guests all sent to one island by a mysterious U. N Owen that no one had seen. U. N. Owen was a disguise to get the guest to the island and stands for UNKNOWN which during the novel, the guests discovered. These characters committed crimes that went under the law, e.g killing someone in war. Most of these guests had the intent for their crime and did it to get a reward, in Mr. Blore’s case to get a promotion at work. They all started to get murdered off as following the poem “Ten Little Soldier Boys” Agatha Christie used the murderer, Judge Wargrave, to get justice on the other characters for their crimes. The change of the name of the island to “Soldier Island” foreshadows the poem for the characters as there were 10 china soldier figurines to represent each guest and they were mysteriously taken away when a guest was murdered. He believed that since they were never punished for their crimes that they deserve to be mentally tortured and eventually killed. The guests didn’t know who was the murderer which caused emotional strain and paranoia between the guests, all suspecting each other and losing trust.

Anthony Marston was the most audacious guest to the island. He was killed off in a quick manner since his crime wasn’t as bad as the others and he showed no remorse. He killed two children, John and Lucy Combes, on accident while traveling along a road at high speeds. He was going too fast to be able to stop and after the whole event was annoyed when his license was suspended for a year. He showed no remorse for the murder of two children and cared more about his driver’s license than lives. Agatha Christie ensured that Anthony Marston got justice from dying by poison on Solider Island. He was the first character killed off because the other characters did far worse things. “The order of death upon the island had been subjected by me to special thought and care. There were, I considered, amongst my guests, varying degrees of guilt. Those whose guilt was the lightest should, I decided, pass out first, and not suffer the prolonged mental strain and fear that the more cold-blooded offenders were to suffer.” Justice Wargrave explained this to the reader in his end letter the order reasoning for the murders to show the different levels of justice. Anthony Marston suffered the least amount of justice compared to the other guests because he had a quick death of choking.

Philip Lombard was the second to last guest to die and had to wait in anticipation on seeing if he would make it off the island or not. He was on the island because he left twenty-one men to die in Africa to spare himself. “Fits too damned well to be a coincidence! Anthony Marston dies of asphyxiation or choking last night after dinner, and Mother Rogers oversleeps herself with a vengeance.” Lombard figures out the poem because he is a clever guy and he is determined to find the murderer and stop the killings. He was the person who killed the most amount of people out of all the guests and got justice by having to wait for so long to die. He ended up being super paranoid unsure if/when he was dying which was what Justice Wargrave wanted. He got the most justice out of all the characters because he was killed by Vera Claythorne, another guest on the island whom he thought he could trust. He was also killed by his own weapon that he brought to the island.

Vera Claythorne was on the island for drowning a young boy names Cyril in hope of getting together with his uncle. She seemed to be not guilty for most of the book saying that she was praised for attempting to save Cyril. She allowed a young boy to go swim to a rock far away even though she knew that he wouldn’t be able to get to the rock without drowning and basically sent him to his death by the worst way, drowning. She got justice by being the ‘last guest’ alive on the island since she, like Philip Lombard didn’t know when she would die and ended up killing Lombard. She had to go through the pain of seeing all the other guests dying and not knowing if she was next. The judge was leading Vera on a path away from him so that she can’t suspect him to be the murderer. ‘Oh, yes. I’ve no doubt in my own mind that we have been invited here by a madman – probably a dangerous homicidal lunatic.'” She suffered justice by having to watch all the other guests die and murder Phillip Lombard, a fellow guest on the island. She was in the worst state of mind after shooting Lombard and was hallucinating. She heard Hugo, Cyril’s uncle, speaking to her in the upstairs of the house and eventually hung herself. Justice was served to her because she couldn’t end up being with Hugo like she wanted and had to end her own life.

Anthony Marston, Philip Lombard and Vera Claythorne all illustrated to the reader justice through their crimes. It starts off by the least bad crime in Judge Wargrave opinion getting murdered first. It then continues to Philip and Vera who committed the worst crimes out of all the guests. They received justice by the hand of Wargrave with a painful death and had paranoia the whole novel. Judge Wargrave acts of justice cannot be justified since he had committed the worst crime out of all the guests. In his confession letter shown at the end of the novel, he states that he has always been fascinated by justice and death. He knew that he was getting old and wanted to bring justice to crimes that go under the law which resulted in the idea of Soldier Island and then committing then felony.