and then there were none

essay question: Analyse how characters were used to explore the concept of justice.

the book “and then there were none” written by Agatha Christie explores the concept of justice using several characters on an island with them slowly being killed off by someone on the island. this allows Agatha Cristie to explore the cases of justice through the individual characters. examples such as vera’s position in the order of killing, the order of killing itself and why justice Wargrave had to kill everybody personly are all examples of justice occurring.

an example that Agatha Christie uses is the character Vera claythorne. Vera Clayrthorne is used to explore justice throughout the book an example of this is because justice Wargrave believes that Vera crime is the most severe he decides that the justest course of action is to leave vera alive for the longest so she can endure the emotional trauma of 9 other people dying around her . this is justice in the eyes of justice Wargrave as this is what he feels she deserves as her crime is not punishable in court so he believes it must be done. this raises the question of whether a person that understands what leads up to a murder and what actually happened whether they should be able to have justice by killing the person that gets away with there crime or whether its murder no matter the situation. if it is justice to kill somebody who has gotten away with murder then it is just that Wargrave killed vera however if that is not the case then that means that Wargrave has murdered vera.

another example is the character justice Wargrave which is used as the character that is making decisions behind the sense as to which courses of action results in the proper justice for each character. an example of this we can find in the book is in the epilogue were he states that the order he chose to kill off the characters was based on the level of guilt felt for there crimes. so those that felt the most guilt for there crimes had to endure the slow process of the rest of the characters being killed off around them. this was what justice Wargrave believed to be the most justifiable course of action. however, it raises the question of whether this order was, in fact, it was the most justifiable course of action. it may justifiable to have killed the criminals off in order of the least amount of people killed to the most. this may perhaps have been a more justifiable way to have done it as the person that has affected the most lives would be punished worst. however certain crimes are worse then others for example if we were to compare vera claythorne and Mrs Rogers they both killed 1 person which would mean that they would be killed at the same time despite vera claythornes crime being much more severe than Mrs Roger. so perhaps it should have been a combination of most lives affected and the nature they were carried out in.

Mr Wargrave made the decision that the crimes that the people on the island carried out were too severe to allow them to continue to live as a result he decided that he personly would have to kill everyone that came to the island as that would be the best way to achieve justice. his choice to personly kill everybody on the island to achieve justice is the way he perceives to be the best way to achieve justice however if he had killed everybody on the island and walked away justice would not have been carried out as he would be guilty of murdering 9 other people he was likely aware of this. because he was aware of this it may have been the reson why he chose to kill himself then instead of waiting for the cancer to claim him. however if he had chosen to hire an assassin to kill everybody for him he would have been aware that it would not be justice as both him and the assassin would then be guilty of murder which only shifts the blame this is why justice Wargrave chose not to hire an assassin for him as he knew it could not bring justice properly.

in conclusion, I believe that Vera’s position in the killing order, the killing order itself and why Wargrave had to kill everybody personally. help the reader to explore the concepts of justice and allow the reader to learn about justice in this situation.