23006371 Crime Story Assessment 1 Essay Questions | Massey University

Murder On The Orient Express

While Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express is often remembered for its clever solution and its familiar sleuth, the use of space in the novel is, in fact, equally important to its effect. Christie turns the Orient Express into a tightly regulated, enclosed world in which all elements of the crime and its detection are enacted by way of travel, visibility, or lack of it, and confinement. The train’s arrangement does far more than raise the moral and social tensions that underpin the narrative. A consideration of the train’s compartments, hallways, public areas, and frozen exterior surfaces demonstrates that Christie employs space as an additional medium through which to question authority, reveal structures of authority, and obscure the classical definitions of justice.

From the moment Poirot boards the train, the Orient Express is presented as a tightly organised social environment. The arrangement of the carriages reinforces the hierarchies of early 20th century Europe: wealthy passengers occupy the first-class sleeping compartments, servants are assigned to more modest quarters, and the dining car becomes a stage for formal, highly visible interactions. These spatial confines echo the expectations and assumptions that govern polite society. When Ratchett, who is revealed to be the killer Cassetti, is found dead within his luxurious compartment, Christie demonstrates the emptiness of these forms of social protection. The privileged space is now the site of his death. The fact that a man of privilege was murdered within the very space meant to signify his prestige suggests Christie’s larger lesson: social privilege cannot protect an individual from moral or ethical judgement.

The bounded space of the train builds tension in the novel. Christie has confined the physical geography so strictly that the mystery itself is very much a closed-circle puzzle: no one can escape through the snow, and no one can enter to commit the crime. The limitation of space raises psychological tension for the characters and readers. The small hallways and close contact between strangers mean that everyone “could have” seen something, or “could have” heard something, but each person seems to evade or deny their role. The tiny, repetitive movements of characters in and out of someone’s compartment and into and out of the corridor and dining car foster a sense of claustrophobia that heightens the difficulty in establishing a clear and cohesive timeline. Christie uses this sense of compression in space to increase Poirot’s difficulty, transforming physical limitations into narrative uncertainty.

The private compartments function as some of the most important spaces in the novel. Each room contains traces, physical clues, personal belongings, and signs of disturbance that Poirot must interpret. The compartments are similar in design, which rules out a broad range of spatiality in resolving the mystery. Meanwhile, the sameness of the compartments only serves to highlight how easily appearances can deceive. Christie is utilizing this sameness of space to destabilize assumptions about difference, individuality, and identity; what one detective discovers in one compartment could have just as easily been deposited there by a different detective in a completely arbitrary and untraceable commitment to chance. The physical space becomes more of a disruptor, and in fact flattens the distinctions that are typically on display for any detective to establish what is fact and what is deception.

In contrast, the dining car offers a communal space where behaviour is carefully regulated by performance and etiquette. In this situation, the characters need to be well behaved and socially consistent. Poirot sees these socially controlled interactions and notices snippets of speech, behaviors, and emotional reactions that do not correspond with their evidentiary selves. When she moves between private and public spaces, there are often contradictions since someone appears orderly and controlled in one environment, then reveals anxiety or nervousness in the other. The train, therefore, is a systematic example of alternation between visibility and concealment – oppositional environments for Poirot’s analytic methods.

Outside the train, the snow covered landscape freezes the entire narrative world in place. The immobilization of the Orient Express serves as something more than plot, it is a symbolic form of suspending the normal functioning of social and legal authority. With no police to summon and no authority to override the state of liminality that surrounds the travelers, they occupy a temporary state of moral vacuum. In a sense, it is the absence of external moralizing that permits the twelve conspirators to carry out their own brand of justice against the criminal, Cassetti. They reveal a collective moral judgment that agrees the institution of justice has operated in bad faith and that the moral fulfillment of responsibility must happen in the isolation of the train. In this way, confinement represents a paradox, freedom from justice, freedom from the authority that operates to limit individual agency in the world.

In finally concluding, it is evident that Christie focuses the train to frame the mystery, and also to critique the nature of justice. Poirot brings forth two possible solutions: one resonates with official respectability and one reveals the revenge of the passengers. This solicits a tension between legality and morality. The story’s anomalous spatial circumstances give both solutions the potential for plausibility. In the end, Poirot’s endorsement of the passengers’ revenge case in fact demonstrates how space constructs moral judgment: within the bounds of the law, he needed to enact justice against the reality of the bounded world.

Ultimately, Murder on the Orient Express illustrates how spatiality functions as a site of power, a tool of hiding, and a mode of revealing. Agatha Christie illustrates spatiality’s influence on humans’ manner of behaving, and the bounded range of justice in the constricting architecture of the train car and the treacherous environment of cold. In the novel, spatiality is not merely an unfurling, it is at once, the site of the hidden, of the revealed, and from an intrinsic place of moral negotiation.

Bibliography

“Lamb to the Slaughter / Murder on the Orient Express — Space, Power & Detection.” Mas sey University Mediasite, webcast.massey.ac.nz/Mediasite/Play/0e0f56b9633049ef95c7dfd37b5f66081d.

Christie, Agatha. Murder on the Orient Express. 1934. Archive.org, archive.org/stream/MurderOnTheOrientExpress_201803/Murder_on_the_Orient_Ex press_djvu.txt.

Essay 1 – Memento (Film)

Question: Genre And Structure

In Memento, director Christopher Nolan uses a fractured approach to storytelling as a foundation upon which his film fits the mould of a detective narrative; instead, he creates a unique puzzle. The way that Nolan structured the film resulted in viewers being thrown off balance, similar to the character of Leonard Shelby, who suffers from short-term memory loss. In fact, by telling the audience the events in reverse order, Nolan effectively creates confusion for the viewer as they attempt to piece together the mystery, this is in line with the way that Shelby himself was trying to figure out what happened to him.

The combination of the way Nolan presents the material followed by how it is given to audiences creates uncertainty for the viewer; thus, they do not have an adequate answer to the question of, “What really happened?” In Memento, viewers learn early on that their desire for order and structured solutions to the detective story will only be met by continually reexamining the film’s basic premise using new and incomplete information.

Both as a device for the storytelling itself, as well as a reflection of Leonard’s mental state, the reverse chronology serves to depict how he wakes to a moment with no previous knowledge. The reverse chronology causes the viewer to lose knowledge instead of gain it, as opposed to the typical method in detective fiction where the viewer becomes the once removed observer and builds knowledge as the investigation progresses. Instead of gaining knowledge, the viewer of Memento loses it repeatedly, reflecting the main character’s inability to create or retain new memories. Thus, the viewer’s experience through the process of viewing Memento negates the usual enjoyment and certainty found in detective literature, and now places them in a position of total disorientation. More so than typical crime films, viewers must play an increasingly active role in interpreting what has taken place, with the structural nature of the film ensuring that we will never have all the pieces to the puzzle, nor will we know when we did have them.

This confusion alters both the ethical and emotional aspects of the movie. Rather than getting closer to the truth, audiences become more aware that Lleonard’s search for justice may not be truthful or accurate; he is heavily dependent on the use of Polaroids and tattoos, as well as written notes, which create an impression of objective truth, but as the film develops it demonstrates that these things can be changed, misunderstood, or intentionally misused. In addition to the traditional concept of a deceptive narrator (which is typical for crime movies), the film’s narrative device of a systemically limited narrator creates an unreliable narrator; that is, Leonard has not purposely deceived us, he cannot trust himself or depends on unreliable memories. Additionally, the film’s narrative construction creates a more pronounced uncertainty regarding what meanings can be derived when context is absent. The long-established expectation that crime films present one clearly defined solution is shattered by Leonard’s belief that he is his own antagonist.

Due to the fragmented storytelling, it is difficult to determine the nature of the characters’ relationships with one another. The audience cannot make sense of Teddy or Natalie because there has not been enough information revealed within the narrative that would help explain their motivations. In most film noir and detective movies, the unknown leads to suspense; however, in this case, the unknown is simply the foundation for everything that occurs in the film. When the audience finds out later that Teddy has taken advantage of Leonard to murder several criminals, the audience will not feel this is a surprise but rather another way to explain what happened between Leonard and Teddy. By showing the events of the film in reverse order (backward), the filmmakers give a new perspective to traditional themes used within noir cinema, repeatedly corrupting the perception of what a viewer may perceive to be a “fatalistic” world, where the world itself is corrupt, because of the structure of the storytelling that corrupts the audience’s interpretation of the events occurring within the film.

The structure of the film has an additional effect on the way that it treats justice. In the traditional detective genre, the uncovering of the truth leads to a restoration of morality; however, in Memento, although we become aware of Leonard’s retaliation for his spouse’s killing very quickly, it occurs after we have watched most of the film. Consequently, Leonard continues on in his revengeful cycle without confronting closure or coming to terms with it; to do so, Leonard will lose his sense of purpose. Thus, the inverted structure gives the impression that justice is a man-made illusion tied to the narrative framework rather than an actual outcome. The last thing that we see in the movie is Leonard making a choice to forget the truth and pursue Teddy, but we only see this choice after learning it from an actual event chronologically earlier. Therefore, the audience will learn that the so-called detective has fabricated an infinite investigation into his own demise. The treatment of genre tropes, such as a cathartic resolution, has been entirely subverted: the audience is led to believe that truth leads to finality; however, in fact, truth has been disposed of in order to preserve the fairy tale of retribution.

To summarize, the narrative of memento was developed into an entirely new perspective through the use of fragmented and non-linear storytelling. The establishment of linearity versus non-linearity allowed memento to depart from the conventions that usually govern detective narratives. As a result, each viewer is allowed to experience the film through Leonard’s fractured mind, and therefore experience truth in terms of their own memory and perspective rather than simply through traditional forms of coherence. The backwards structure also serves as an argument of the film regarding how memory is subjective, and that one cannot establish stable knowledge in our current world. Through these creative

structures, memento has become not only a crime/mystery film, but also a criticism of many traditional aspects of detective storytelling.

Essay 2 – “Goldfish” (Short Story)

Question: Space And Atmosphere

In Kirsten McDougall’s “Goldfish,” the crime narrative is constructed by using the urban environment as well as by employing claustrophobic spaces that lend themselves to heightened tension and paranoia. The author intentionally chooses ordinary street settings, street neighborhoods, and cramped interiors in which to contextualize his story so that the reader can relate to these places in an intimate manner, allowing for this effect of discomfort to be enhanced. Danger and uncertainty are revealed through the narrator’s explorations of the city; this exploration serves as a visual mapping of the narrator’s mind as he is attempting to make sense of what he views as actual threats and those that are merely in his imagination. At the same time, the cramped space of the narrator’s home intensifies the volatility of his emotions. Such exploration creates a setting that is akin to that of the narrator experiences to create a blurred boundary between perceived threat and those that cannot be clearly defined by outside sources.

The city in “Goldfish” functions as both a physical setting and psychological terrain. Noir settings traditionally emphasise shadows and urban decay, but McDougall’s city is not overtly threatening; instead, its normalcy becomes the source of unease. Streets that should feel safe instead become sites of surveillance. When the narrator notices the goldfish being followed and later encounters strangers whose intentions seem uncertain, the city morphs into a space of potential danger. McDougall achieves suspense by defamiliarising everyday spaces—alleys, footpaths, buses—turning them into ambiguous zones where motives cannot be read clearly. The narrator’s uncertainty about who is watching or being watched reflects a broader anxiety about urban anonymity. This spatial ambiguity forces the reader into a state of alertness: danger feels pervasive precisely because it is not clearly located.

The atmosphere of instability is intensified within the interior of the space. The apartment itself serves as a location for emotional instability; it provides a contained environment (or space) for the narrator’s anxieties to build up. The goldfish, as a weak, fragile creature which resides out of its natural habitat, represents an individual who is vulnerable in their urban setting. The attempt by the narrator to keep the goldfish safe leads him to experience both protection and entrapment; the apartment creates both a place to be protected from the world and a place of confinement. As a result, the claustrophobic environment created by the apartment is increased by the narrator’s continuous thoughts of fear and doubt; the narrator thought his fear and worries were both justified and irrational. The interaction of the two parts of space (internal/external) supports the tone of the story; danger exists not only in the external world (e.g., from another person), but also through an individual’s subjective interpretation of what happens in their life.

The tension between public and private spaces is present in “Goldfish”, although, unlike most crime fiction, which typically creates clear demarcations between these two worlds, “Goldfish” creates an amalgamation of both worlds. The presence of danger from the outside world has encroached on the domestic home, and mistrust follows wherever the narrator goes. The goldfish tank, as a physical object, is a symbolic representation: transparent yet confining, fragile yet revealing, of the narrator’s own mental state. McDougall has taken the enclosure of the goldfish and turned it into a metaphor of how it feels to be constantly on view, like the goldfish, and how the narrator perceives himself to be under constant scrutiny; therefore, there is a shift away from the role of setting and into the role of metaphor for helplessness and fragility through the depiction of the setting.

Through the pacing of the plot and sensory descriptions used, the writer builds an atmosphere. In McDougall’s economy of writing, his use of brevity delays the forward momentum of the plot and extends the period before and between events, thus enhancing suspense. The city is seen in pieces and parts via the narrator; the images are of people who are strangers, snippets of conversation, and moving lights that echo the disintegrating sense of reality the narrator has. This fragmented quality to the atmosphere puts the readers in a parallel position with the narrator and supports the ambiguity of morality within the work. What is unclear in the story is if a genuine threat is present or if one has been manufactured from within the mind of the narrator. Consequently, physical space becomes a psychological entity and it takes its meaning from the narrator’s psychological condition.

As with the climax, the moral meaning of the story is shaped by the atmosphere in which it is placed. While the narrator is experiencing what he believes is a threat to his goldfish, the outlook on whether or not his reaction is one of justified fear or extreme is no longer clear to him. The nighttime city, which previously only appeared as ambiguous, becomes somewhat of a threat, but there is nothing concrete in the atmosphere to provide the reader with an alternative view of the narrator’s actions. By leaving the atmosphere of uncertainty largely unaltered by McDougall’s resolution, he reinforces the noise quality; dangers remain as potential, not certainties, and the illusions of protection, paranoia, and intervention have little to no defined boundaries.

To sum up, the use of space and atmosphere to create suspense and ambiguity in “Goldfish,” is done by utilizing the urban environment, which has been altered from an ordinary environment to one of threat, and/or uncertainty. Space is used to mirror one’s emotional vulnerability and/or mental instability. As the story’s atmosphere is quiet; darkened, broken; and thus creates tension for the reader, it makes the reader think about what they see and feel, and that there could be a difference between real and/or imagined. Thus by using these spatial methods, “Goldfish” is an in-depth examination of fear; of perception; and of the confusion that is created by the dichotomy of safety and threat in the modern city.

Essay 3 – “He Knew” (Short Story)

Question: Power And Control

The story, “He Knew” by Ze’nia A’qila, is written as an example of unequal power within society, displaying itself through racial profiling, the government, and society’s expectations in the story. The relationship between the character of the narrator (who remains unnamed), a police officer, and the bystanders highlights how crime narratives create and reveal the injustices of a system rather than solve a crime. The protagonist of this piece is not a classical perpetrator but rather a victim of the power of the state, as his actions and behaviour are evaluated and judged before any crime occurs or is committed. Therefore, the authorship of this piece redirects the reader’s perspective regarding crime fiction: Instead of focusing on mystery-solving, the narrative highlights the reality of living under surveillance and racialised suspicion. By presenting this image to the reader, the narrative invites readers to think about how the outcome of events is shaped by power rather than by truth.

In the opening moment of the narrative, we see an example of how the narrator and officer establish their power dynamics. The way the officer believes he has already made a judgement on the narrator’s character suggests that institutions often utilize existing allowances for authority against people instead of proving or supporting what those institutions have claimed to be true about them. – there is no question of who is guilty here because it is done without reason. Thus this situation is flipped upside down, a police officer has power over the identity of another person, and that individual has little opportunity to regain any sort of control over his identity. The reader cannot help but consider this situation inequitable, and thus the reader will empathize with the struggles of the main character. Empathy for the narrator is rooted not in the development of a ‘right to innocence’ but rather in the inequality of power between himself and the officer that has been forced upon him.

The Public setting is the central location in which the power discrepancies illustrated in this piece are played out. The response of those who witnessed the events as well as their passive acceptance of the officer’s actions and reactions only serve to further isolate the narrator. The public becomes an extension of the power of the institution; it recreates the same societal beliefs and morals, leaving no alternative outlet for the narrator to defend himself. The genre of crime fiction often employs witnesses to be the evidential representatives to determine what has taken place, yet in “He Knew,” the witnesses function merely as tools of misinterpreting the events. The silence exhibited by these witnesses reinforces the power and authority of the officer, which clearly shows that social authority is established not just through the forceful nature of the confrontation but also via the inaction of the entire group. This interplay between these two will cause the reader to experience greater levels of emotion toward the reader due to the fact that the narrator is caught within a structure of no neutral party to provide perspective on what occurred.

The story illustrates a psychological form of control through the narrator’s inner thoughts, including fear, shame and heightened consciousness of how society views them. This form of control allows the individual to influence their own identity through the awareness of the perceptions held by others. This causes the narrator to continuously doubt themselves and to be mindful of even the most minute actions that may be misconstrued as threatening. Furthermore, both the internalized perceptions of the narrator (because their own self-control is similar to that of the police officer’s) are a type of control imposed upon them. From this perspective of the story, it illustrates a critique of the overall institutional structure of policing, namely that power does not just apply the force of law, but also creates and enforces the conditions in which particular bodies have been identified as “dangerous or suspicious.”

More importantly, “He Knew” offers no resolution for the power dynamic between the police officer and the narrator. There is no confrontation or unmasking of the officer; there is no restitution for the narrator, nor is the narrator given back their dignity. Withholding closure, in this case, has a purpose and meaning within the larger context of the story’s critique of justice, and highlights how the absence of justice in a story mirrors the reality of the systemic power dynamics that traditional crime fiction tends to ignore in its search for orderly solutions. By withholding closure, the narrative challenges readers to reflect on their own unanswered questions and shifts the emotional impact from suspense to frustration and strong moral indignation.

The title emphasizes the unequal power dynamic in society; the certainty of knowledge is associated with those who hold interpretive control, or the right to validate their interpretations and judgments, while the narrator is denied that level of authority. When the officer claims that “he knew,” it implies that the officer has knowledge based on the fact that society supports his ability to possess knowledge, interpret it, and pass judgment on individuals. However, this type of validation does not exist for the narrator. While traditional crime fiction reaffirms the concept of authority through the detective’s perspective, this perspective serves as the source of harm in this instance. The established hierarchy between the detective and the suspect is now an indictment against institutionalized power and control.

In conclusion, “He Knew” uses the themes of power and control as central conflicts, rather than as elements of mystery. The story shows how authority uses its power to allocate blame, create public perception, and establish psychological restriction. This connection to the character’s experiences of racial suspicion allows the writers to generate empathy in readers, and is in stark contrast to many existing author moralities in the genre of crime fiction. Thus, the story repositions the genre’s emphasis from investigating crimes to investigating the systems that create ignorance. While power in “He Knew” is neither good or safe, it does illuminate the weaknesses of fairness in institutional and social structures.

Works Cited:

Memento (Film)

Nolan, Christopher, director. Memento. Newmarket, 2000.

“Goldfish” (Short Story)

Jones, Lawrence. “Goldfish.” In Baby No-Eyes and Other Stories, Penguin Books, 1998, pp.

“He Knew” (Short Story)

Ihimaera, Witi. “He Knew.” In The New Net Goes Fishing, Heinemann, 1977, pp.