Symbols

A major symbol throughout the whole book is the ten little soldier boys. The ten little soldiers are evident in two visible ways. The first way includes the ten little soldier boys figurines, which are placed on the dining room table.

Every time someone is killed, a soldier is taken away secretly, without anyone seeing a little soldier being removed. This leads all the characters to realize that the ten people in the house each represent one of the little soldiers on the dining table.  The other way that the ten little soldier boys are shown is through the rhyme that is written and hung in every bedroom in the house. The rhyme is a story about ten little soldiers who died one by one, until there are none left. Each death that occurs in the house is based on the rhyme that is written and happens very similarly to the death in the rhyme. As the characters start to realize that the deaths occurring in their house are similar to the deaths that occur in the rhyme, and in the same order, they are able to predict how the next death is going to happen. Although they have an idea of how the next murder is going to happen, they have no way of stopping it. This leads the last death to be done by choice, based on following the ending to the rhyme. 

*"Ten Little Indians" is the original rhyme, which was later changed to "Ten Little Soldier Boys". This is the original rhyme song. 

Character Changes

In the beginning of the novel, most of the characters are excited for their new trip that they get to go on. Some have feelings of excitement or eagerness as they are ready to finally get a week to relax and enjoy their selves, but that quickly changes. Along with them being excited, many of the guests are confused with who is the host who invited them all to the island. They start to question how they all ended up there, but when they start to ask questions, somebody dies and the atmosphere changes to worry and fear. This leads the characters to start to lose trust in people around them and lose their judgment abilities of other people. Characters no longer believe what other people tell them and lose their sense of perception of reality.  For example, one of the guests decides to hang herself because she has totally lost her sense of perception and has no idea what is going on. Everything had already been set up for her to hang herself and because the next death in the poem was to die that way, she lost her mind and followed the trend.

                              

At the same time, the murderer is always planning and deceiving everyone right from the beginning of the novel, right up until their death. Because of his hidden identity, as in character, he is also excited for the trip to start, then shocked and confused with fellow guest dying.

Justice

A major specific in this novel is getting justice for the wrong deeds of people. Whether the characters realize it or not, all the guest in the house have one thing in common, according to the murderer, which is the fact that they are all involved or the reason for someone else’s death, throughout different times in their life. The murderer in the book has invited all the guest of the house for one reason, and that is to get revenge on them for “killing” someone else. The murderer is already expecting death soon for medical reason and decides that he has nothing to lose and decides he wants to go out in a better way. His motivation for making his plan is to get even with people who got away with murder earlier in their life. Even though some of the guests in the house were not directly the cause of someone else’s death, like Emily Brent, the murderer doesn’t necessarily know this, but based on the information the murderer had, they still believed justice was needed. The murderer believes that if these people who got away with murder before die, justice will be served, which is his goal. It is also ironic that the murderer's first name is Justice, and his goal is to get justice.

Setting

The setting of the book is on a mysterious, isolated island, which occurs to have no humanization on it. This island is called Indian Island, a fictional island, and is located off the coast of Devon. The book storyline took place in the 1930s which makes the book old, but still accepted today and the mystery is still a typical mystery story that we would see and read today.  With the unique setting of the book, it made the mystery story possible because they were on an isolated island so no one could get off the island or get help, like the murderer planned. It also made all the characters get to know each other better because they were the only ten people around on the small island and then they ended up suspecting each other. Also, because it was an isolated island and there was no one else on the island to be suspected as the murderer, it made all the characters to go crazy and confused with everything they were witnessing. The setting enhanced the story by adding suspense to the story because as a reader, you want to know how they were going to get help or get in contact with other people and get off the island and survive. The setting used for this book, was a good choice as it enhanced the book and only added to the plot.

All About the Book

Just off the coast of the city Devon, eight strangers, Justice Wargrave, Vera Claythorne, Philip Lombard, General Macarthur, Emily Brent, Anthony Marston, Doctor Armstrong and William Bore, had all been invited to a mansion on Soldier Island. All of them have been invited for different reasons, such as an old friend invited them or a job at the mansion, but some of them have been hired to observe the vacation by an unknown person. When they arrive at the house, they find out that their host, Mr. and Mrs. UN Owens, are not going to be present and they left Mr. and Mrs. Rogers to serve the guests. As they find their rooms and settle in, they all notice a poem that is hung up in their rooms called “Ten Little Soldiers”, which describes how there were ten boys at first, but one by one they are all die until there are none left. That night at dinner they notice ten little soldier boy figurines on the centre of the dining room table. Also, during their meal, they hear a voice, which a gramophone record, accusing each of the ten people in the house of murder. Because of the weird coincidences of their vacation so far, the guest start to realize they have been set up to come to the island, but realize there is no way out. One by one, the guest then start to die, just like the way the little soldier boys do in the poem, but these are not just coincidences, these are murders. As each new person dies, the rest of the group tries to solve the mystery; “Who is killing everyone and how?”    

*A trailer for the movie that was created based on the book.

All About Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie is the author of this book, “And Then There Were None”, but also the author of numerous numbers of books today. Agatha was born on September 15^th, 1890 in Torquay, England. Her parents, Fredrick and Clara, also had two other children, Madge and Monty, who were both older than Agatha. By the age of five, Agatha had already taught herself how to read, along with the remainder of her education coming from tutors, part-time schooling and French finishing school. With Agatha’s father dying when she was only eleven years old, she began to travel a lot with her mother, which she loved. Agatha then met her husband, Archie Christie in 1912 and got married on Christmas Eve in 1914. She then became a Voluntary Aid Detachment of the Red Cross Hospital in Torquay during the war, but it wasn’t until her sister challenged her to write a novel that started her love for writing. Her first book, “The Mysterious Affair at Styles”, took her five years to write, but was finally successfully published after being turned down by six different publishers. He first child was born on August 5^th,  1919, but only six years later, her mother died and her husband left her for another woman. Following this hard time for Agatha, she travelled to Baghdad in 1930, where she met her second husband, Max Mallowan, but also found out that her only daughter was seriously ill.  Agatha later continued to travel and write books along her way, which were two things she loved a lot. She then got the nickname, “Queen of Crime”. January 12^th, 1976 was the end of Agatha’s extremely successful career and her happy 46 year marriage to Max.