Title: Agatha Christie : investigating femininity /
Authors: Makinen, Merja.
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan,
Year: 2006
Subjects: Christie, Agatha, Criticism and interpretation.; Femininity in literature.; Women in literature; Detective and mystery stories, English History and criticism.; Literary studies: from c 1900 -.; Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers.; Feminism & feminist theory.; Literature.; Detective and mystery stories, English; Femininity in literature.; Women in literature
Abstract: "Unlike much of the criticism which chooses to focus on a few canonical texts, this detailed textual analysis of Christie's oeuvre demonstrates exactly how quietly innovatory Christie was in relation to gender, beginning in 1920 and concluding in the early 1970s. Makinen questions Christie's reputation as merely a supreme puzzle-plotter, suggesting that her literary innovations in relation to femininity are equally important."--BOOK JACKET.
Contents: 1. Preliminary proceedings. -- Christie's cultural context, the new woman, and the modern -- Christie's critical reception in relation to gender -- 2. Detecting deviancy. -- Tommy and Tuppence Beresford -- Hercule Poirot -- Ariadne Oliver -- Miss Marple -- 3. Available femininities. -- Intrepid young adventurers -- Career women -- Women outside the familial norms -- New forms of domesticity -- 4. Women behaving badly -- 5. Representing women of violence, Agatha Christie and her contemporary culture. -- Contemporary feminist thought on violent women -- Contemporary reception of women who kill -- Christie's female murderers -- 6. An examination of otherness, as the West encounters the East. -- Biography -- The Western Mediterranean -- The Middle East -- Jewish and Greek characterisation : where East meets West.