Agatha Christie Investigating Consciousnesses
By Erika Ruonakoski | Image Pauliina Mäkelä
We do not need to implant microchips in our heads in order to be able to interpret the behaviour of another human being or animal. This said, we only have direct access to our own stream of consciousness. That is not a bad thing.
The first scene of Murder in the Clouds (1935) is set in the cabin of an aeroplane. During the flight, a murder takes place, of course, but what is even more interesting here than the murder is how Agatha Christie guides the reader between the consciousnesses of different passengers. One of them feels nervous when sitting opposite a handsome man, another is worried about his career, and the third regrets the dose of cocaine she just consumed. Is one of them a murderer? We only linger in the thoughts of each individual for a little while, so a lot remains unseen, possibly including somebody’s murderous plans.
This beginning sketches out a fact of which we are always, in theory, aware: everybody is their own primary viewpoint on the world. In reality we cannot jump from one consciousness to another, whereas this is possible in literature. Even a murderer’s point of view can become so familiar and understandable, so intimately felt, that we may hope that they succeed in their endeavours and get away with it. When things are described from a murderer’s perspective, we take their side almost instinctively. In everyday life, by contrast, our interest in the other’s world of experience is limited. If someone opens up about their experiences and thoughts at length, we become bored. They seem to fill the inner space we need to be able to orient freely towards our own goals.
When at an airport, metro station or shopping centre bustling with people, it is dizzying to think that all of those hundreds of people are constantly processing their own stream of worries and hopes and that all of them have their own history and goals, which are equally important to them as mine are to me. Insofar as they notice me, my experiences and thoughts are fairly insignificant to them.
Literature operates beyond the indifference, avoidance and demandingness that characterise our everyday encounters: it makes possible a safe immersion in other ways of experiencing. Christie’s accounts transgress even species boundaries. In Dumb Witness (1937), she speaks the thoughts of Bob the dog, when the doorbell rings: “I’ll have your liver and your lights … I’ll tear you limb from limb! I’ll teach you to try and get into this house. Just wait until I get my teeth into you.” A while later Bob gets to meet the guests: “Who is it? Where are they? Oh, there you are. Dear me, I don’t seem to remember –” sniff–sniff–sniff– prolonged snort. “Of course, we have met!”
‘‘Literature operates beyond the indifference, avoidance and demandingness that characterise our everyday encounters: it makes possible a safe immersion in other ways of experiencing.’’
It is possible to try to verbalise the dog’s lived world, because his movements, position and the sounds he makes all express his attitude to the situation at hand. As for human beings, their speech also reflects their ways of experiencing, especially when they judge other people’s character and actions. These portrayals, which say as much about the narrator as about the person they are judging, are a central subject matter in Christie’s novels. We keep looking for the murderer in the different reflections as if in a hall of mirrors. Yet the privacy of the stream of consciousness makes misunderstanding and deliberate deceit possible. The murderer is in plain sight but, for the most part, hidden.
The primacy of one’s own point of view and the privacy of one’s consciousness are not, generally speaking, negative things. They protect us and help us maintain our ability to act. We understand each other, because we express our experiences with the help of words, gestures and other expressive means. The privacy of consciousness does not need to stand for complete isolation or loneliness. Still it is important for us to be able to slip into the imagined consciousnesses provided by works of art. For a moment, we can see the world from another perspective, perceive other possibilities and other events. It is a relief to – even partially – let go of the primacy of our own point of view.
Literature
Beauvoir, Simone de. 2004. “Literature and Metaphysics”, in Philosophical Writings, ed. Margaret A. Simons with Marybeth Timmermann and Mary Beth Mader, 261–277. Trans. Veronique Zayzeff and Frederick M. Morrison. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. (Original text “Littérature et métaphysique”, 1946.)
— 2011. “My Experience as a Writer”, in ‘The Useless Mouths’ and Other Literary Writings, eds Margaret A. Simons and Marybeth Timmermann, 282–301. Trans. J. Debbie Mann. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. (Original text “Mon expérience d’écrivain”, 1979.)
Christie, Agatha. 1935. Murder in the Clouds. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company.
— 1937. Dumb Witness. London: HarperCollinsPublishers.
Iser, Wolfgang. 1980. The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins. (Original work Das Akt des Lesens: Theorie ästhetischers Wirkung, 1976.)
Korhonen, Tua, and Ruonakoski, Erika. 2017. Human and Animal in Ancient Greece: Empathy and Encounter in Classical Literature. London: I.B. Taurus.
Leave a Reply