“Had Archie Christie not had the soul of a stockbroker in the body of a romantic hero, had he not become addicted to golf and the City, had he been a more responsive and understanding partner, had he not been given the opportunity to fall in love with another woman, had he and Agatha had more children, or at least one other child more in Agatha’s own image- had any or some of these possibilities been realized, Agatha might perhaps have devoted herself to husband and family, repeating the family career of her mother.”
As pertaining to her daughter, it did not seem to occur to her that leaving her quite frequently with the help, nanny, governess, etc. would do any harm. Agatha and Archie were planning a ten-month world tour, which would prove to be the high spot of the Christie marriage. Agatha, during the trip found a few moments to go off alone, and was absolutely a social success. She had great success doing comedy skits in an amateur show. She was an outgoing, independent woman, taking center stage with confidence and charming all those she met.
Back home, Archie was so consumed with golf and social conventions, and Agatha did not especially enjoy the company of the golfers or their wives. He stopped Agatha in her tracks when she suggested that they have another child, but did try to make her happy by splurging on a car and teaching her how to drive. As far as their conversations went, he was either discouraging or indifferent when Agatha tried to discuss ideas for a book with him, and did not enjoy the London literary world to which she was being introduced.
“Idea? I’ve got any amount of ideas. In fact, that’s just the difficulty. I can never think of even one plot at a time. I always think of at least five, and it’s agony to decide between them... One actually has to think, you know. And thinking is always a bore.”
Christie is seen as politically conservative and socially conventional, but her attitude toward the New Woman is radically different from Mrs. Lynn Linton’s or from Waugh’s. Christie is a strict sexual egalitarian in that she is able to imagine a cold heart beating under a soft young feminine breast, a calculating mind working behind the brown curls and dancing blue eyes. Throughout her work, Agatha reveals a certain disregard for politicians. She distrusts politics as indifferent or even hostile to the important spheres of life, religion, and interpersonal relationships. However, Christie keeps herself and her work out of the political arena. Her novels are relatively free from political references and/or slang.
One category, though, Agatha did not avoid and that is the issue of anti-Semitism. A very bold kind of anti-Semitism colors the Jewish characters in many of her early novels, and Christie reveals herself to be as unreflective and conventional as the majority of her compatriots. We can laugh with her as she pokes fun at some of her characters, but specifically the portrayal of the Jewish financier in the Secret of Chimneys is hard to understand and forgive. However, as she and other authors grew to understand what Nazism really meant for Jewish people, Christie abandoned her previous ways. Agatha even corrects herself in Westmacott’s novel Giant’s Bread published in 1930. Christie makes one of her five protagonists Jewish, and addresses head-on the Anti-Semitic prejudice present in England.
“Agatha Christie had moved into the forefront of British detective-story writers. Ironically, her very fame and success were to make the next, and most dramatic episode in her life, even more traumatic.”
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