Miss Marie Van Schuyler Character Analysis

Miss Van Schuyler is a wealthy American spinster who travels with her cousin Cornelia Robson and her nurse, Miss Bowers. She is a stereotypical spoiled old rich lady who disdains most of the other passengers and who is particularly controlling of Cornelia, whom she treats almost as a servant. She especially doesn’t like it when Cornelia associates with people like Ferguson and Dr. Bessner. Although Miss Van Schuyler seems to give Poirot helpful information during his interrogation of her, it is later revealed that she is partly deaf and that she may have lied to Poirot about what she heard in order to hide her disability out of pride. Miss Van Schuyler remains a ridiculous, unpleasant character throughout the story, and Christie uses her to satirize the vanity of the upper classes and punishes her at the end of the novel by having Cornelia abandon her in favor of getting married to Dr. Bessner.