Agatha Christie is a well known crime novel writer who has created a very popular character named Jane Marple, popularly known as Miss Marple. Miss Marple is actually a fictional character who appeared in twelve novels written by Agatha Christie and has also been portrayed on the screen. Miss Marple is an aged lady living in St. Mary Mead’s village who is always busy pulling weeds out of her garden or knitting cardigans.
Although her personality has been portrayed as a household elderly lady, but in reality, she has a very sharp mind. She has the capability to understand the human nature very minutely and this makes it quite easy for her to know about the intentions of the people. Being a part of the detective stories, she plays the role of a private eye detective flawlessly and sometimes even humiliates the law enforcement officers by cleverly solving the cases, which have not yet been the cup of tea for the police officers.
Introduction
Agatha Christie got the inspiration for the character Miss Marple from her grandmother and the name Marple was stimulated from the station that Agatha passed. In the initial novels written by Agatha, the lady Miss Marple is portrayed in a different manner as compared to what she is depicted in later crime stories.
The early novels of the writer have described Miss Marple as a lovable lady who is in the habit of snooping in other’s matters. However, in the later stories, she becomes quite modern who has still not married anyone, but starts living with a live-in companion named Cherry Baker.
Agatha portrayed Miss Marple as an elderly woman who might seem weak hearted to readers, but in reality she is very firm and is not even afraid of seeing dead bodies.
Well known author Raymond West was introduced as a new character, that is, Miss Marple’s nephew and in the later series, Raymond’s wife Joan was also featured. Miss Marple’s nephew always keeps on underestimating her and her ability to perform investigation.
While living in the village of St. Mary Mead, Miss Marple comes across different examples of negative human nature which makes her quite proficient in understanding people and solving the case by deeply analyzing different situations. Her old age was financially supported by her nephew, Raymond West.
Miss Marple is a well educated lady who has studied human anatomy and has also spent some time in a finishing school in Europe. She describes herself as a gentle woman who can ingeniously solve mystery cases and other murders which sometimes are even difficult to solve for the police officers, as well.
The author has not evidently shown anything that can clearly depict her growing age, but still some examples have been given that shows that Miss Marple has started growing older. She has been forged in different novels like The Murder at the Vicarage, The Moving Finger, A murder is announced, They Do It With Mirrors, A Caribbean Mystery and Sleeping Murder to name a few. Readers have really cherished the elderly character as a private eye detective.
