The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

Dr. James Sheppard is the novel’s narrator, and like James Watson in Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, he is also the detective’s sidekick. Christie often employed Doyle’s classic setup: a brilliant, eccentric detective with a kind but naive sidekick who narrates the stories from the first-person limited perspective. In most Poirot stories, the sidekick/narrator is Poirot’s friend Arthur Hastings.

In The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Christie cunningly plays on the genre’s conventions. She makes the narrator/sidekick not only unreliable (something that can’t be imagined of Watson or Hastings) but also the murderer. A narrator is unreliable when they, intentionally or not, mislead the reader about the events they narrate. Sheppard makes true statements but lies through omission. His deceptiveness first appears when he murders Ackroyd but leaves it out of the narrative.

The novel ends with Sheppard confessing his lies of omission. He praises his writing and how he did not explicitly lie to the reader: “All true, you see. But suppose I had put a row of stars after the first sentence! Would somebody then have wondered what exactly happened in that blank ten minutes” (284). His arc throughout the narrative displays the theme of The Human Capacity for Evil because nobody believes that Sheppard would be capable of such an act, which allows him to work with Poirot unsuspiciously for a time. While readers today recognize the cleverness of Christie’s plot and characterization devices in creating Sheppard, they caused controversy at the time of publication because they so thoroughly exploited the reader’s genre expectations. In this novel, the sidekick/narrator is also the antagonist/villain.

Caroline Sheppard represents local or folk knowledge in King’s Abbott. Sheppard notes that she “can do any amount of finding out by sitting placidly at home” (2). The information she gathers is usually correct and allows her to make accurate intuitive guesses about situations. Her intuition contrasts with Sheppard, who prefers logic and deduction.

She becomes a crucial part of the investigation because Poirot recognizes the necessity of folk knowledge and intuition. Where Sheppard and Caroline represent the two sides of deduction and intuition, Poirot utilizes both to arrive at conclusions. The siblings represent the traditional stereotype of intuitive women and logical men, while Poirot represents their union. Like Holmes, Poirot is gendered but asexual with no interest in women (or men) unless they are relevant to a case. Caroline’s local knowledge becomes imperative because it helps clear Paton’s name for Poirot. She is the one who finds out about Paton’s shoes, and she is the one who overhears the conversation that would otherwise be a missing piece in Poirot’s puzzle.

Roger Ackroyd is the murder victim in the mystery, yet he is also Poirot’s confidant in a sense. Poirot needs a character who shares his desire for the truth. Though Sheppard is the sidekick, he is not a confidant because he does not share Poirot’s goal. The truth that Sheppard aims to reveal is not the truth that Poirot aims to discover. Ackroyd does fulfill the role in his limited capacity; he shares Poirot’s goal of discovering who was blackmailing Mrs. Ferrars, and he would bring that knowledge to the public if he had the opportunity. Though they never interact, Ackroyd shares Poirot’s goals and the details of his life give Poirot the clues to avenge his murder.

Mrs. Ackroyd, Roger’s sister-in-law, takes on the role of the caregiver to Flora. Her goal is to ensure that Flora is adequately taken care of and remains untainted by the events occurring in King’s Abbott. She is a tertiary character in the story, existing within it but remaining on the sidelines for most of it. However, she is necessary to the story as a vehicle for the theme of Shifting Social Relations.

Flora is Mrs. Ackroyd’s daughter and Roger’s niece. She stands out because of the various roles she fulfills in the narrative. She is the love interest of both Major Blunt and Ralph Paton. Her evolution from the beginning to the end of the novel demonstrates her capacity as a dynamic character to grow in response to stress and challenges. Flora fights the social norms and expectations set upon her early in the novel by going against her mother’s wishes and involving Poirot.

However, Flora also serves as an outlaw in this narrative because she steals cash from Ackroyd. She believes that she reduced herself to a “common thief,” but she does not give herself credit for the wit that she displays in her attempt to create a cover story. She might be oblivious to Major Blunt’s feelings toward her, but she pays attention to the happenings around her enough to be aware that there is more to the murder than meets the eye.

Major Blunt is a guest at Ackroyd’s house. He is significant to the overall plot of the novel as a witness and potential suspect without the plot directly affecting his growth as a character. His role in the narrative is both the explorer and the love interest. When Christie introduces him, he fears he does not fit in with society and is better suited for nature. However, his connection with and love for Flora Ackroyd convinces him to remain part of the King’s Abbott society.

Symbolically, Major Blunt represents the people who cannot find hidden truths. In Chapter 9, “The Goldfish Pond,” Blunt attempts to grasp a glittering object out of the pond but cannot do so whereas Poirot is later successful. The item Blunt tries to acquire is a wedding ring, which connects him to what the ring symbolizes—hidden secrets. Blunt cannot grasp the secrets of others in part because he does not understand people the way he understands animals and hunting.

As a character type, Geoffrey Raymond is a stock character. He is a typical secretary who does their job well and gets dragged into an issue by their employer. He cooperates with the investigation and does not attempt to make waves. He does not significantly impact the development of the narrative. Archetypically, he is an everyman—relatable, grounded, and generally unimportant. Even the secret that he maintains—that he is hard-pressed for money—is insignificant relative to the lies and evils committed by everyone else. At heart, Raymond is a good person and reflects the better half of The Human Capacity for Evil.

Miss Russell is a parlourmaid (a maid who serves at table) at Ackroyd’s house. The first time Miss Russell appears on the scene, she has a knee complaint and asks Dr. Sheppard about drugs and poisons. Her secret goal is to help her son get through his drug addiction, as she is a private caretaker for her son as well as an employee in the Ackroyd household. Her role is limited because the identity of her son, Charles Kent, is an accidental discovery in the overall mystery. Whether or not Christie revealed the connection between Miss Russell and Charles would not have changed the outcome. However, she does serve as a red herring. When Poirot inquires about the patients that Dr. Sheppard saw the morning of the murder, everyone focuses on Miss Russell. Poirot does not correct them and allows them to believe that he was curious about her rather than the man who phoned Sheppard that night.

Ursula Bourne, whose married name is Ursula Paton, is another love interest who serves to expand the story that Poirot seeks to discover. Since it is her wedding ring found in the goldfish pond, and the wedding ring symbolizes the secrets everyone keeps, the ring’s owner is the character through whom the story’s secrets hinge.

Ursula Bourne grows and changes from the beginning to the end of the story, though her arc occurs in the background, and the reader is only made aware of it after the fact. Her role as a vehicle for the secrets also makes her a vehicle for the ethics side of the theme of Ethics and the Law. She does the wrong thing, withholding the truth, but she does it for the right reasons. She desires to protect Paton and raises the question: Is it ever acceptable to do the wrong thing to protect another person?

Ralph Paton is a highly symbolic character. The mystery of Roger Ackroyd’s death hinges on him, yet he is nowhere to be found. It is not until the final scenes that Paton appears when Poirot reveals that Sheppard had been hiding Paton until Poirot found him. Paton is, symbolically, the truth.

Poirot mentions that he could unravel the case if only Paton would come forward. That is not possible, within the framework of the detective novel, until the Reveal, as there would be no case to investigate. Poirot means he could unravel the case if he had the truth. When Paton enters the room at the end of the novel, Poirot has found the truth, so Paton can rejoin the community, and his peers are present in the room when Poirot lays out the case before everyone.