Reflecting on Miss Marple

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“…Poirot's constant references to his 'little grey cells' justify claims that his approach is distinctly rationalist (Mann, 1981) so that Christie's work can be read as extending the long tradition of rhetorically gendering science as a masculine endeavor that affirms patriarchal values (Harding, 1987;Haraway, 1988;Cockburn, 1985). Though Poirot's methods lean towards social sciences, which have been characterized as a feminine counterpart to the natural sciences (Haraway, 1988), the Freudian psychology he employs is predicated on deeply rooted sexist beliefs (Shaw and Vanacker, 1991;Rowland, 2001) that cast him by association as a supporter of patriarchy. Some do credit Miss Marple with being an adherent to method in her sleuthing (Shaw and Vanacker, 1991;York, 2007), even by identifying it as "analogical reasoning" (Bargainnier, 1980), p. 74), but it is never linked to a deliberate practice of social scientific inquiry as such.…”

“…The perception of elderly spinsters as malicious gossips is a pronounced stereotype in western culture (Caputi, 1993), and one that Miss Marple uses to great effect. By engaging in gossip with other marginalized characters, and by allowing her interest in the affairs of others to be dismissed by those around her as a penchant for gossip, Miss Marple collects valuable clues about the people, places, and things surrounding the mysteries she aims to solve (Shaw & Vanacker, 1991). In this way she exploits her intersectionality by allowing the marginality ascribed to her age and gender to act as a cover under which she can insinuate herself into the investigation and gather the clues needed to solve the mystery.…”

“…She's been studied by cultural studies, gender and literary scholars, but none have recognized her as perhaps the world's most notable exponent of academic inquiry. The Miss Marple books in particular are often examined by scholars interested in questions of gender identity (Makinen, 2006;York, 2007;Shaw & Vanacker, 1991), but overlooked as models of social science methods. As a sleuth, Miss Marple is sometimes compared negatively to Poirot, who makes explicit references to method and psychology as a means of detection (Bloom, 1990;Wagoner, 1986;Mann, 1981), but this comparison ignores the fact that, like Poirot, Miss Marple adheres closely to the social science paradigm, though with a more profound tendency toward critical methods.…”

‘Tale Engineering’: Agatha Christie and the Aftermath of the Second World War

“…Marple is 'a kind of social conscience', and the novels, predominantly written after the Second World War, 'react with conservative irritation to the new psychological theories because such theories tend to deny evil and excuse the criminal and because they threaten the rationale on which detective fiction of this type depends'. 19 Evidence can be found to support both these approaches -the texts themselves are contradictory -but Shaw and Vanacker's attribution to Christie of a 'conservative' irritation in the face of change raises pertinent questions for any analysis of her later texts. 20 Did age and the social transformations of postwar generate a transition from modernity to conservatism, or is the relationship of her writing to its context more nuanced and uncertain?…”