A password to die: Analyzing characters’ personalityin Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Niggers

Abstract

Ten Little Niggers first published in 1939, was Agatha Christie’s best seller novel and the only novel she wrote where there was no detective to solve the mystery. The story began by introducing eight persons who were invited to The Indian Island by a person who claimed to be an old friend. Arriving in the island, the guests were only welcomed by a couple who were hired to be the house keeper and the cook. One by one of ten persons living in that house were killed based on the nursery rhyme hanged on the wall of each room. This paper is aimed to find out the reason and the personality of each character which resulted in them being killed. Content analysis was applied to gather and analyze the data from the novel. It was found out that Marston was the first to be killed because of his careless personality and the least sin he made in the past. Claythorne was the last to be killed because she made the biggest sin and therefore, suffered a lot from fear and guilt which made her hang herself with the equipment prepared by the murderer.