Erland Gadde
April 1st, 2006, 10:52 AM
In "A murder is announced" there are, among the characters living in the village of Chipping Cleghorn, two old ladies living together, Miss Hinchliffe and Miss Murgatroyd. Of these two, Miss Hinchliffe is the dominant one. She has quite masculine manners, and she is also tall as a man, almost. Miss Murgatroyd, on the other hand, is quite whimsical and feminine in a stereotypic way. It's clear that there is a lot of affection between them, which is clearly shown when Miss Murgatroyd gets killed, and Miss Hinchliffe tries to personally attack the revealed killer, again a quite masuline behaviour.
I'm not sure, but I think there are similar couples of old ladies in other Christie novels. (In "A murder is announced", we also have Miss Blacklock and Miss Bunner, but it's not quite as clear in their case.)
Now, I think that Miss Hinchliffe and Miss Murgatroyd (and similar couples in other novels, if there are any) are lesbians, but that Agatha Christie was unaware of that!
What do I mean with this? The ladies were invented by Agatha Christie, so how can she be unaware of what her own characters are like?
Well, what I mean is that Miss Hinchliffe and Miss Murgatroyd were modelled upon real persons Agatha Christie knew of, and that these real persons were lesbians, without Agatha realizing that.
I got this idea when I learned from TV that there are couples of old ladies living together on the countryside (in this case it was in northern Sweden) who are lesbians, but because of prejudice they never revealed the true nature of their relationship to their neighbours. I don't think that Sweden and England are very different in this respect, and that such a secrecy must have been much more necessary decades ago when Agatha Christie wrote her novels. So I think that Miss Hinchliffe and Miss Murgatroyd were modelled upon such sectretly lesbian couples.
I've read most of Agatha Christies novels, and I can't recall that homosexuality is ever mentioned in any of them. It's certainly not mentioned in "A murder is announced". This makes me believe that homosexuality never existed in the thoughts of Agatha. Although she certainly did know it existed, she probably thought it only existed among odd and fringe people, and she probably never even got the idea that nice old ladies on the countryside could be lesbians.
Recently, I found on the net that homosexuality is actually mentioned in some novel of Christie, but that's certainly exceptional, and I think my hypothesis is still valid...
Also, I found on the net that in a new adaptation for the screen of "A murder is announced", Miss Hinchliffe and Miss Murgatroyd are made openly lesbian. But that's probably because the movie makers made the same conclusion as I did...and homosexuality is, fortunately, more accepted today than during Agatha's lifetime.
Erland Gadde
I'm not sure, but I think there are similar couples of old ladies in other Christie novels. (In "A murder is announced", we also have Miss Blacklock and Miss Bunner, but it's not quite as clear in their case.)
Now, I think that Miss Hinchliffe and Miss Murgatroyd (and similar couples in other novels, if there are any) are lesbians, but that Agatha Christie was unaware of that!
What do I mean with this? The ladies were invented by Agatha Christie, so how can she be unaware of what her own characters are like?
Well, what I mean is that Miss Hinchliffe and Miss Murgatroyd were modelled upon real persons Agatha Christie knew of, and that these real persons were lesbians, without Agatha realizing that.
I got this idea when I learned from TV that there are couples of old ladies living together on the countryside (in this case it was in northern Sweden) who are lesbians, but because of prejudice they never revealed the true nature of their relationship to their neighbours. I don't think that Sweden and England are very different in this respect, and that such a secrecy must have been much more necessary decades ago when Agatha Christie wrote her novels. So I think that Miss Hinchliffe and Miss Murgatroyd were modelled upon such sectretly lesbian couples.
I've read most of Agatha Christies novels, and I can't recall that homosexuality is ever mentioned in any of them. It's certainly not mentioned in "A murder is announced". This makes me believe that homosexuality never existed in the thoughts of Agatha. Although she certainly did know it existed, she probably thought it only existed among odd and fringe people, and she probably never even got the idea that nice old ladies on the countryside could be lesbians.
Recently, I found on the net that homosexuality is actually mentioned in some novel of Christie, but that's certainly exceptional, and I think my hypothesis is still valid...
Also, I found on the net that in a new adaptation for the screen of "A murder is announced", Miss Hinchliffe and Miss Murgatroyd are made openly lesbian. But that's probably because the movie makers made the same conclusion as I did...and homosexuality is, fortunately, more accepted today than during Agatha's lifetime.
Erland Gadde