![Book Review: Are the characters being targeted by U.N. Owen actually guilty and deserving to be punished? – “And Then There Were None” by Agatha Christie](http://frannieheh.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Andtherethenwerenonedvdbbc2015cover.PNG.png)
Book Review: Are the characters being targeted by U.N. Owen actually guilty and deserving to be punished? – “And Then There Were None” by Agatha Christie
Martin Luther King once said, “Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.” In the novel And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, ten characters are invited on an island by U. N. Owen. One night during dinner, a gramophone exposes that all of the characters have committed at least one murder and that they were brought onto the island to be emotionally tortured and killed. Night after night, a different character is murdered, and the definition of justice becomes an ambiguous concept. The characters do not deserve to be mentally tormented and murdered.
All of the characters felt guilty after they murdered someone and had no intention to do it again. One example is Vera, who kept on thinking back about the child she had drowned. When she was looking out at sea, all she could think of was how cruel the ocean could be. She kept on repeating to herself, “Drowned… drowned at sea” (46, Christie). Another time is when Vera remembered telling the kid to go into the ocean in chapter 14. Just thinking about it, she started turning restlessly in her bed. Readers can see that she is upset over what she had done. As a result, the guilt that had already caused her is the best punishment instead of murder. Vera had already been tormented with the death and the island so much that she did not also deserve to be killed.
The characters also do not deserve the fear and craziness before they were murdered. Throughout the book, they saw their group members die and were skeptical of everyone. While punishment is supposed to teach a lesson, not only did U. N. Owen not do that, he also made everyone crazy. Readers can see this in chapter 11, where Vera starts yelling after seeing Roger, their maid’s death, “Do they keep bees on this island? Tell me that … Ha! Ha!” (309, Christie). In the end, U. N. Owen said that he wanted to keep it fair for everyone. The people who committed the biggest murder die last. Considering she only drowned the boy, Vera killed him in a small time frame that was quick. Even so, she had to go through days of fear, worries, and crazy talk until getting murdered in the end. Vera already had so much guilt and learned her lesson that she did not also need to be tormented.
Though some may agree the characters deserve punishment, they most definitely do not deserve to be mentally and physically tortured for days. They do not deserve to be murdered by someone whose conception of justice is complicated to the fact that in order to bring justice, they committed a crime far more significant than anyone else on the island. Similar to what Martin Luther King said, fighting death with death only leads to more. While justice should be a solution, it instead becomes a weapon in U. N. Owen’s hands.