Hercule Poirot

In this article, we explore the concept of criminal psychology and will explicate some of its major tenets in characterization of Hercule Poirot. Using an interdisciplinary approach, by close reading and drawing from crime and psychological theories (especially Behaviorism), we investigate the criminal profiling techniques in Agatha Christie’s detective novels. Particularly, we adduce Ian Marsh’s theory in introducing a set of explanations for criminal behavior and Westera et al.’s propositions in identifying features that make a detective’s endeavors effective. We focus on the psychological procedures that exist in the process of mystery (making and solution), as well as on the detective’s task to decodify riddles in light of the internal and external forces acting on him and how these affect his final decision. Then, we expand the notion of profiling as conducted by a detective and will illustrate some of the recurring biases that influence the final verdict about a case. Finally, we depict how the abovementioned proceedings are implemented in Murder on the Orient Express (1934), The A.B.C Murders (1936), and Hickory Dickory Dock (1955), three of Christie’s best-selling novels with Hercule Poirot as their leading character. The character of Poirot, with his immaculate criminal profiling, bears witness to how Christie drew from and, at the same time, contributed to the concept and practice of criminal psychology in fiction.

Книга является первым опытом энциклопедического описания, наверное, одного из самых известных героев детективного жанра – бельгийского сыщика Эркюля Пуаро, созданного британской писательницей Агатой Кристи. Даются подробные сведения о самом частном детективе, его соратниках, героях сочинений Дамы Агаты, анализируется окружавший Пуаро мир вещей и явлений. Добавляются новые данные о расследованиях бельгийца («Убийство Роджера Экройда», «Смерть лорда Эджвера», «Убийство в Восточном экспрессе», «Смерть в облаках»,
«Убийства по алфавиту», «Зло под солнцем» и др.). Особое внимание обращено на рассказы Кристи, сюжеты которых были задействованы в гораздо большем числе крупных шедевров романистки, чем принято сегодня считать. Предпринимается попытка выяснить время написания последнего произведения о Пуаро – романа «Занавес», тщательно разбираемого в данной энциклопедии. Также автор книги стремится обнаружить истоки вдохновения Кристи, находит примеры творческого обмена между Дамой Агатой и современными ей писателями. Многое из написанного о Пуаро было основано на реальных событиях. Для тех, кому интересен захватывающий мир детектива.

All classical detectives are story-tellers, even though they rarely narrate their adventures themselves, delegating the task to their assistants. Many crime writers have adapted this setup and strengthened the privileged position which the detective enjoys – infinitely enlarged through the perspective of the loyal deputy whose limited intellectual and abductive abilities act as the proverbial magnifying glass and allow the detective to take on larger-than-life dimensions.
This article scrutinises the detective's privileges in detail, first of all by characterising the narrative conventions to which it is tied. It primarily draws upon novels from the 1930s, a decade frequently singled out as the most productive one of Christie’s career,  and the last one to be associated with the ‘Golden Age’ of detective fiction, when writers tended to adhere to genre guidelines playfully set down in prescriptive rule-books. 
The chapter outlines some critical strategies that set out to deconstruct both and to strengthen the position of the reader, including a number of parodies and Pierre Bayard’s ‘detective criticism’.

With the formulaic nature of the genre and the methodology of the deduction at the forefront of my research premise, this paper will attempt to demonstrate a stronghold of Kantian enlightenment ideals infusing the detective fiction of the twentieth century. Although the scale of the investigation is large, I will limit my focus to Agatha Christie’s Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, in two instances of his appearance namely the first, "The Mysterious Affairs at Styles" (1920) , and the last, "Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case" (1975).

A variety of psychoanalytic readings of late-Victorian and early-twentieth century crime fiction often place the detective at the centre of their analysis, depicting them as a conduit through which readings of other aspects of the genre can be articulated. Samantha Walton, for example, explores the idea that the ‘the detective [acts as the] diagnostician of the self’, and goes on to argue that ‘[t]he central place of psychological discourses in the golden age novel both incites and responds to specific cultural anxieties about selfhood’ (2015: 275). Consequently, however, the psychological effects of performing the role of ‘detective’ remain under-examined. Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous Sherlock Holmes performs his detection under constant scrutiny from those around him who fail to understand his mental processes. In the early twentieth century, Dorothy L. Sayers’s Lord Peter Wimsey struggles to reconcile the tension between his position as ‘aristocrat’ and ‘detective’, and also has difficulty with disassociating his activities as a detective with his experiences in the First World War. Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot’s ‘othered’ position as of a different nationality to most other characters psychologically isolates him, whilst his compunction for the domestic does not mesh with his activities as an externally-othered figure. This article performs a reading of Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, Sayers’s Lord Peter Wimsey, and Christie’s Hercule Poirot and offers a tentative exploration of how these classic ‘detectives’ are often physically, socially, narratively and psychologically isolated by performing their role.

In her 2015 monograph Guilty but Insane: Mind and Law in Golden Age Detective Fiction, Samantha Walton performs a rare and comprehensive analyses of the significance of psychology in golden age detective fiction, exploring ‘the detective as diagnostician of the self’ and arguing that ‘[t]he central place of psychological discourses in the golden age novel both incites and responds to specific cultural anxieties about selfhood’.
However, whilst Walton’s argument is excellent, the psychological effects of performing the role of ‘detective’ remain under-examined. Before the ‘golden age’ itself, Sherlock Holmes famously struggles mentally with periods of inactivity, leading to extended drug use to occupy his mind until another case presents itself. Dorothy L. Sayers’s Lord Peter Wimsey, struggles to disassociate his activities as a detective with his experiences in the First World War, leading to turbulent flashback episodes when his activities have caused a criminal’s execution. Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot’s compunction for orderliness and neatness aids him in his acts of detection, yet potentially masks his own discomfort with his own existence. Finally, Margery Allingham’s eccentric detective Albert Campion uses his activities as a sleuth as a form of mental and physical escapism.
This paper therefore performs an introspective psychoanalytic reading of several golden age detectives to extend Walton’s narrative of the importance of psychoanalysis in fully understanding this genre. It argues that the psyche of the detective themselves is almost always connected to their sleuthing activities, and presents a picture of the ways in which this affects the genre’s construction.