Sacrifice In Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None
700 Words3 Pages
James E. Faust states, “Unfortunately, some of our greatest tribulations are the result of our own foolishness and weakness and occur because of our own carelessness or transgression.” In Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, ten people were mysteriously invited to a remote island known as Indian Island. While having dinner, a disturbing record begins to play. The record announces the crime each of the individuals has committed. After a period of shock and awe, the characters begin to die one by one. The order and execution of their deaths were constructed by a man named Justice Wargrave. Wargrave desires to kill those whose crimes “the law cannot touch” (Christie 122). The order of the deaths was based on the characters that were the…show more content… Marston chokes to death after he “picked up his drink and drank it off at a gulp” (Christie 60). His quick death coincides with his murder of running over two children. Marston’s reckless lifestyle and lack of “moral responsibility” (Christie 241) explains him not feeling any remorse for his crime. Wargrave quickly kills Marston in a way that could have been prevented if Marston would pay attention to what was occurring around him, just as with his victims. Marston’s death was unexpected, just as the death of his victims; the children were harmlessly walking in the road. Similarly to his reckless driving, Marston carelessly places his drink down, allowing Wargrave to quickly place potassium cyanide in his beverage. With all things considered, Marston’s death and suffering was equal to that of his…show more content… He carefully picks his victims based on what he thought was beyond the reach of the law. His research on the victims also determines the order in which they are killed, Wargrave made it clear that the people who had the least guilt were to be killed first. Marston was indeed the least guilty; therefore, it is easy for the reader to see why, exactly, Wargrave decided to kill Marston first. He considered the accident as “beastly bad luck” (Christie 55) for himself and then for the children he has killed. As Wargrave states, Marston possessed a “callousness and inability to feel any responsibility for the lives he had taken” (230). Because Marston did not feel guilty for his initial crime, Marston could continue to commit crimes and feel like he was not at fault. Therefore, Marston could be potentially dangerous to the others on the