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Situational Irony
Style
Explanation and Analysis:
Despite the novel's foreign and luxurious settings, Christie uses descriptions sparingly. However, she provides the reader with lots of details and potential moments of foreshadowing, any of which may or may not be relevant to the central mystery. Death on the Nile also features a plethora of characters, each with their own personality quirks and often even their own arcs.
The novel is written from a third-person omniscient perspective, but sometimes Christie gives the reader a look into a character's mind. In these moments, readers can see firsthand how a given character feels and reasons. The plot is carefully designed in Death on the Nile, and each character and detail eventually plays some role in the story. Christie's writing is straightforward, and she does not take many stylistic liberties in the narration. However, the characters speak with dialect and idioms that can illustrate their class, country of origin, and perception of the world.
The novel is relayed in chronological order, although characters do tell stories about the past and cast new light on events the reader has already seen or heard about. The novel is dialogue heavy, and Christie has a special interest in the psychology of her characters, even those completely uninvolved in criminal activities. She lingers on Poirot and Race's problem-solving and analysis, but chooses not to focus on describing any character's gory death, nor the long-term aftereffects of the crime. As a result, Death on the Nile reads more like a word problem or puzzle than a thriller or horror novel.
