Point of View

The Mystery of Mrs Christie is told through two perspectives. There is Agatha’s first-person point of view as well as a third-person limited narrator which focuses on Archie. These two different narration styles are extremely effective, as they allow for a difference in perspective that the reader would not get otherwise. Agatha describes herself as an “unreliable narrator,” since she cannot differentiate between the ideal of Archie that lives in her mind versus the real Archie she is married to (158).

The narration styles switch with each chapter. The title “The Manuscript” precedes chapters written from Agatha’s point of view, which describe the development of Archie and Agatha’s relationship from courtship to divorce. The chapters which provide a glimpse into Archie’s life are each labelled as “Day __ after the disappearance” and each describe a day following Agatha’s orchestrated disappearance. These switches...