Examination of Crime as a Social Context Essay

Murder in the Orient Express is among Agatha Christie's bestselling mystery novels. The piece is about a puzzle surrounding a group of people disconnected from the rest of the world when a snowbank stops the orient express a few minutes after midnight. On this day, the train was unusually full, but in the morning, one passenger was missing (Christie, 1988). An American tycoon was stabbed several times, and he just lay on the floor with his door locked from the inside. There was terror and isolation in the train because the passengers knew that the killer was amongst them, so detective Hercules, who was also on board took to identifying the murderer before he or she struck again.

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On the other hand, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Nikolai Leskov is a brutal short story where Leskov manifests the abiding truth of a displaced man to Russia. Her marriage of amenity afflicted Katerina Lvovna to a man twice older than her. She lived with this man for years and was stripped of the freedom of her childhood until she met Sergio Filipych fifteen years later (Christie, 1988). Unfortunately, Sergio had seduced half a dozen women in the same town before he turned to Katerina and did the same. Katerina eventually falls for him, and there is undoubtedly nothing she could not do for him. Katerina's passion led to adultery, betrayal and ultimately murder.

Both of the above stories depict the concept of crime in a social context, and it affects and shapes the reader's response differently. Published in 1934, author of the play "Murder in the Orient Express," gives an impression that the events in the play had occurred just a while back. The orient train used in the play was the actual train that traveled from Serbia to Paris from 1919 to 1939 (Christie, 1988). Christie presents a diverse group of characters from the United States. It serves as an American commentary, its diversity and its unsettling idea of how justice should look. In the story, everybody on the train had the opportunity to murder because all of them behaved suspiciously, and the murdered man was famous for his unpleasant behavior. He had killed a child in a highly publicized incident that everyone in the world might have had a motive to kill him. After looking into the incident, Poirot discovered that the victim had been stabbed several times using the same weapon, but sometimes with higher strength than others. He then decided that all the twelve passengers must have conspired to kill the man thus naming every passenger a suspect.

The social context of this play, which is composed of a combination of the social environment in which the play takes place, the demographical, racial and social characteristics of all the passengers on board drives the audience's reaction and response differently. First, readers may have no idea that the murdered man was involved in public misconduct; thus, the idea that everyone in the train may have committed the crime does not register. Readers think that there is only one killer with a definite motive and the means to do it. Some readers believe that the passengers all look suspicious as camouflage to distract them from the truth while others have no idea what to think. The story triggers the reader's unconscious insensate knowledge of murder mysteries and how they work. Also, using a diverse cast confuses the readers because, in another context where there is a black man, and the rest of the cast consists of whites, the readers would automatically suspect the black man. However, Christie manages to uphold the readers' suspense to the end because anyone from the diverse cast could have done it.

Beginning with the setting, Christie uses this particular train in the story for several reasons. One, the train passes through several countries, which makes it an international train, meaning that the passengers on board are from different origins (Christie, 1988). Using an international train helps her develop a heterogeneity in her choice of characters. From the readers' point of view, the characters came from varying countries including America, England, Belgium, Hungary, Italy, France, Germany and Sweden to mention but a few. The readers also characterize every passenger's actions based on their origin, which means that they have stereotyped them. Therefore, even if Christie had a different idea when she made everyone look suspicious on the play, the readers had their suspects aligned based on the passenger's origin. However, as the novel develops, the reader understands that there was a connection between all the passengers; thus, they get even more confused on how to judge and decide who the real killer was. Secondly, the train is used to depict the modern epoch and its developments, therefore making it a perfect place to exaggerate the modern justice system. Rachett, which was a pseudonym for a paranoid man known as Cassetti. He was among the men who had kidnapped a pilot's daughter but was never charged with the crime by the US justice system, thereby leaving the affected families in a pool of suffering.

However, the guilt always followed him. This information triggers the reader's response in a variety of ways because some believe that Cassetti took the train to escape the guilt of living in America after killing a girl and never persecuted for it. Others may perceive that Cassetti had taken the train to move to a different city and start a new life after being given a second chance. The two views may not help the readers figure out who killed Cassetti and they do not help them understand why he was killed. However, the investigator in the train considered all the passengers' suspects are arguing that since Cassetti was tried unfairly for his crime in America, all the passengers had a motive to murder him. He argued that they all conspired against him and together stabbed him to death (Christie, 1988). The investigator visualized that the passengers were tired of the justice system, which could not at least serve fair justice for the murder of an innocent child, and they were ready to take the matter into their own hands. The investigator's point of view might have shaped the response of many readers who feel that the criminal system in the US has failed and it can hardly be trusted to provide justice for the citizens. His point of view might also have shaped the response of readers who believe that unless the citizens take matters into their own hands, it would be impossible to eradicate the bad guys from society because most of them have the system under their thumbs.

The train can also influence the readers' response because it creates suspense for them as they try to figure out who might have committed the crime now that all types of people including the investigator, the poor, the rich, blacks and whites are confined together without a way to escape. Moreover, the train is divided into first class and second-class sections, which makes the reader aware of the passenger's social and financial standing and their place in the world. This division triggers the reasoning of the reader to figure out who had the motive, the means and the capacity to commit the murder.

Additionally, Christie opens the novel by indicating that it was during winter, an essential detail for the readers to understand why the passengers were trapped with no way out whatsoever (Christie, 1988). The book also hints that the detective thinks that the murderer had not left the train because there were no any footprints in the snow just outside the window of the victim. The clarification of time by Christie was an important element for developing her novel because it gives the readers something to think. The readers are left wondering whether a similar event would occur any other time of the year, they also wonder whether the passengers would have handled the situation differently were it another season among other things. Christie also uses an idea that instills fear in the audience as the cast is trapped in a train with a murderer on board, and with no possible escape plan. Had Christie chosen a different setting, the play would not have as frightening, thus depicting a different message (Gale, 2016). The environment does include not only the time and place where the events took place but also the circumstances that designate the ambiance in which the events of the play unfold, which include the surroundings, the social class defining the cast and the weather at the specific time. Christie uses all these tactics to instill fear and build tension in the audience.

Also, the narrator of the story is a wise character who does not unfairly obstruct the reader's response as he sticks to the facts of the events that occurred. Additionally, the narrator gives the reader different points of view for them to discern the best one to follow when making their judgment. For instance, when narrating the story, the narrator switches between giving the investigator's point of view some other characters' points of view, such as that of Mary Debenham, to give the reader a broader ground to judge the crime (Christie, 1988). The reader's response would have been different if the narrator was narrating it from only one side of view, say that of the investigator. The investigator depicted that all the passengers conspired to murder the victim going by his investigation. He found out that the murderer used one weapon, but sometimes he or she used a higher magnitude to stab the victim than other times. He finally concluded that one person could not have stabbed him all those times with varying magnitudes. Had the narrator used his point of view alone, the readers would agree with him because all the passengers looked suspicious. Other signs such as the diverse group used as cast, the means, motive and capacity of the murderer among other factors would not register in the reader's mind.

On the other hand, Nikolai Leskov focusses on the predicament of women in different eras in the history of Russia. The story triggers harsh responses from the readers since those who take it at face value think that "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk" is a perfect and an authentic argument for the urgency to overthrow Russia's dictatorship. The design of the story is a fiction town in Russia where male characters are unproductive idiots, and others are violent thugs, and some of them are both while their female counterparts are all victims of physical and emotional abuse. Some readers who relate to Katerina, the female who murders her father in law before killing her husband, feel sorry for her because they see her as a victim of circumstances. Such readers believe that Katerina is a victim because she was just a young female dying in the horrible conditions of Russia before she was finally fed up with all her oppressors and murdered them.

Other readers perceive it as a story narrating about the particular power of love, and how it drives people towards committing extreme and absurd acts. Other readers understand the story as the ongoing trend of women oppression in Russia following ways in which Katerina's husband justifies her crimes. Such readers express anger and hatred for Russia's autocracy and the humiliation depicted in Russian households. This story was just an illustration of how most Russian women suffer due to domestic violence, which has not yet been classified as a form of crime in the country. The social context in which this story is told helps readers to view domestic violence in different dimensions. Katerina's offense is an awakening for most readers that some countries such as Russia are still practicing dictatorship and women are treated as objects rather than human beings.

Conclusion

The plot of the story is such that Katerina is a young woman married to Zinovi, a merchant. She is always at home because women in Russia are suppose...