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Kaori Oliveros
Ms. Starry
English H
29 October 2018
Suspense Essay
Imagine you are all alone watching a horror [Link] main character has locked herself
in her room. Little did she know, the killer is right behind her, ready to attack. Then you hear
hard stiff banging from the front door. This feeling is called suspense. When reading or watching
a suspenseful book or movie, the reader/watcher experiences a fearful aura, asking the question
“What is going to happen next?” Agatha Christie, a well-known mystery novelist, uses the
intense suspense in her novels. In one of her most famous suspense books, And Then There Were
None, Christie uses literary devices like imagery and flashback to show suspense. Because
imagery and flashback gives the reader a sense of danger or fear, they illustrate an effective way
in creating suspense.
Imagery is one of the most effective device. For example, Emily Brent, a so called “self-
righteous” 65 year old woman, states, “The wind is quite strong and there are white horses on the
sea” (Christie 144). When Brent describes the weather with “white horses on the sea”, she means
that waves are forming because of the strong wind. This quote gives the reader a sense of danger
since the house is on unstable land according to Mr. Blore, an ex-CID inspector. He states that
the house is “Awful in bad weather” (Christie 16). Another example of suspense-like imagery is
on page 160. Christie illustrates Wargrave “stroking his lips and looking quite passionless and
inhumane….” (160). This quote explains Wargrave as inhumane or cruel. This “inhumane”
character is exposing himself as the murder. On page 49, “Only Mr. Justice Wargrave… seemed
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comparatively unmoved. …...The judge sat in his habitual pose, his head sunk down into his
neck” (Christie). Wargrave stays unmoved in all of the unsuspected deaths as if he planned them.
Flashbacks are also effective literary devices. For instance, Mr Blore is reminded of the
old drunk man from the storm Emily Brent describes. He states, “‘There was an old fellow in the
train from Plymouth yesterday. He kept saying a storm was coming. Wonderful how they know
weather, these old salts.” (Christie 146). Blore brings the reader back to the old man from
Chapter 1: “Watch and pray,’ he said, ‘Watch and pray. The day of judgement is at hand”
(Christie 16). The flashback shows suspense by giving a warning to the reader. For example, in
chapters 4 and 6, Marston and Mrs. Rogers were found dead. The two deaths set off an aura to
the characters that one of the guest is hunting them down. Another flashback is when, Justice
Wargrave has died, “robed in scarlet with a judge’s wig a upon his head” (Christie 222).
Wargrave’s death returns the reader back to missing items, a scarlet curtain and sewing wool,
from Chapter 10. These missing items are used to portray the poem: “Five little soldier going for
the law, one got into Chancery and then there were Four.” By going by the poem, the remaining
guests don’t know when and how they are going to be killed by the poem.
Suspense uses imagery and flashbacks to give the reader a sense of fear and danger.
Imagery illustrates the surroundings of the main character(s) and describes the characters’
features and actions. Flashbacks give the audience warnings and returns the reader back to
reclaim what has happened and why it happen now. Whether Christie or any other mystery
novelist use literary devices, suspense sends chills and causes a desperation of knowing what’s
going to happen next.
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Works Cited
Christie, Agatha. And Then There Were None. Collins Crime Club, 1939. Print.