And Then There Were None

by

Agatha Christie

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And Then There Were None Themes

Themes and Colors
Justice Theme Icon
Guilt Theme Icon
Death Theme Icon
Class Theme Icon
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in And Then There Were None, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.

Justice

Mystery novels, of which Agatha Christie is often considered the queen, generally present a complex and confusing cast of characters that, through the efforts of the detective/narrator/reader become organized into groups of good and bad, black and white. Generally, there are one or two criminals and lots of victims. And Then There Were None never works out this neatly. Agatha Christie presents justice as an ambiguous concept. Who deserves punishment and how much? The criminal…

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Guilt

And Then There Were None presents two kinds of guilt: personal and legal. The majority of the characters in the novel are people who have escaped the latter but are plagued by the former. Justice Wargrave understands the power of personal guilt as shown by the fact that he guesses Vera will kill herself when she is the last one left on the island. Yet he does not believe that a sense of personal guilt…

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Death

Death is obviously a central part of And Then There Were None, but it is treated quite casually. There is no pomp or circumstance surrounding the death of any of the characters. They are laid out on their beds and that is it. This simplicity comes from the fact that the characters revert to a more primitive state when death becomes present in their everyday lives. When so many people are dying there is…

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Class

Each character has a very specific, defined role in English society. For example, the Rogers come as servants, Vera as the secretary, and Anthony as the moneyed socialite. There is a doctor, a judge, a general, and a spinster, and each play out their roles exactly as they should – at least when they are first on the island. This IN this way, the novel establishes the rigidity of the English social order. And Then

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