Adam, Eve and Agatha Christie: JWL

[Guest guest]

dam, Eve and Agatha Christie: Detective Stories as Post-Darwinian

Myths of Original Sin

by John Wren-Lewis

The longest running play in human history is now approaching its

second half century on the London stage.

Agatha Christie's detective thriller The Mousetrap has become almost

a British National Monument. When I

went to its opening night on Nov 25th 1952, to see the young Richard

Attenborough playing the detective,

we were still only just emerging from the shadows of World War Two.

The possibility that forty years on I'd

be in Australia wasn't in my mind then, but even more remote was the

thought that the play could still be

going in the next century. And I don't think the idea had crossed

anyone else's mind either; Christie herself,

interviewed in 1962 on the (then) phenomenal occasion of the play's

tenth anniversary, said she'd expected

a run of no more than three months and was greatly buoyed by the

assurance of impresario Peter (now Sir

Peter) Saunders that it was good for at least a year!

In fact the extraordinary success of this rather ordinary well-made

play is itself something of a mystery, and

the detective in me has been stimulated to investigate. In so doing,

I've been led into some rather deep

waters of the human psyche, regions where psychology overlaps with

anthropology and even theology –

bringing some surprising insights about the underlying forces that

make detective stories so fascinating,

especially, it seems, to people with religious interests. For it's

not only English vicars who are notoriously

`whodunit' fans: Jiddu Krishnamurti, who read practically nothing

else, delighted in them, as did Carl Jung,

who read almost everything else. Religious thinkers have also been

prominent among producers of the

genre: G K Chesterton, Dorothy L Sayers and Father Ronald Knox were

co-founders, with Christie, of

London's famous Detection Club in the 1930s. And after Sherlock

Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and Miss Marple,

probably the most famous of all fictional detectives is a priest -

Chesterton's Father Brown, who latterly has

been joined on the shelves and on screen by several other persons of

the cloth, such as Harry

Kemmelman's Rabbi Small, Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael, and Brother

William of Baskerville in Umberto

Eco's Name of the Rose.

I now see something more than coincidence in the fact that the

whodunit is a fairly new literary

phenomenon. Tales of good defeating evil after a struggle are

probably as old as humanity, but until the

second half of the nineteenth century, the age of Poe, Wilkie

Collins, and Conan Doyle, there were hardly

any stories in which the struggle took the form of a mystery, with

the unmasking of a hidden villain at the

climax. The ascendancy of detective fiction as we know it coincides

with the post-Darwinian period when, for

the first time in human history, religious belief was declining

sharply among the literate Western public. The

detective emerged as a saviour-image as people began to lose faith in

those more traditional saviours, the

holy man, the righteous ruler, and the knight in shining armour. And

stories about evil as a mystery became

popular when ancient myths about the so-called `roblem of evil' began

to seem discredited.

Public debate on `science versus religion' revolved around issues

like the conflict between new discoveries

and the literal truth of Bible-stories, but the real conflict, we now

know, went deeper. Few serious thinkers in

the Judeo-Christian/Muslim tradition have ever been overmuch

concerned with the literal truth of the Adam

and Eve story or the six-day timetable for creation, and the same

holds for myths of origin in other religious

traditions. The primary reference for all such ideas has always been

to the felt existential human situation,

and that was what science in general, and Darwinian science in

particular, seemed to have changed in a

radical way. It appeared to undermine the notion of harmony as the

basic characteristic of reality, for which

metaphors like Tao or Divine Purpose could be appropriate

expressions, replacing it with the principle of

`nature red in tooth and claw'. And human destructiveness needed no

explanation if we are simply children

of a universal struggle for survival: the only problem of evil in

that case is the practical one of preventing the

struggle from making life intolerable, and the best hope for doing so

seemed to lie in developing the faculty

of intellect, which was apparently where the wish for something

better had entered the picture in the first

place.

But evidently the feeling of evil as something out of tune with the

general nature of things and requiring

explanation wouldn't go away, for there grew up in the West this new

addiction for stories in which an act of

violence shatters a previously harmonious scene, causing waves of

conflict and suspicion to spread

everywhere until the new-style saviour figure, the detective, brings

to bear a special kind of intelligence in

ferreting out where the violence came from.

 

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For three reasons, I'm sure there's much more to this than an

outdated habit of thought lingering on in a

form of popular entertainment, like the myth of the Evil Angel

surviving as the Demon King of pantomime.

In the first place, science itself has now shown, with the study of

dreams, that while the expression of

thoughts and feelings in dramatic form may be an older kind of

mentation than rational analysis, it is in no

way outdated. On the contrary, it is the basic mode of all mental

activity, underlying rational analysis itself -

so we are well advised to pay attention to its collective

manifestations in popular entertainment. Secondly, if

violent struggle for survival really is the basic reality of

everything, where does the human desire for

something better come from? Thirdly, evidence has emerged from

biological science during recent decades

to indicate that the popular perception of nature as essentially red

in tooth and claw was a gross overreaction

to Darwin's discoveries, a failure to see the wood for the trees.

Darwin was not, after all, the first to observe the ubiquity of

conflict and violence in the organic world - it was

every bit as obvious to anyone with half an eye in earlier cultures

as to us today, and probably more so,

since urban life has never been really sheltered from nature until

quite recently. When earlier cultures assumed

harmony underlying the conflict, and expressed that assumption in

various kinds of theistic image, it

was because elementary logic dictates that unless something like this

were the case, nothing would ever

survive at all - and Darwin as a naturalist took this as much for

granted as any theologian, even if he was a

little more tentative about the use of theistic imagery.

In fact it would be fair to say that biological science has provided

massive confirmation for what was earlier

just an assumption of basic harmonious order underlying nature's

apparent conflicts. Microscopes and, in

more recent times, cine-cameras and a plethora of other instruments,

have uncovered in minute detail the

astonishing built-in mechanisms which limit the expression of

competitive and destructive urges throughout

the sub-human biosphere, curbing them so that they are always

ultimately contained by harmony. In the

years since World War II biologists themselves in growing numbers

have begun to articulate this thought, a

notable example being the work here in Australia of Professor Charles

Birch, which won him the prestigious

Templeton Prize and is very clearly set out in his excellent book On

Purpose. And the specific contribution

of evolutionary theory, of which Darwin is the archetypal

representative, has actually been to extend our

understanding of this principle into the time-dimension, by showing

how conflict and competition serve

development by selecting the strongest and most flexible strains for

breeding.

This means there is indeed something almost un-natural about our

human species, where aggression and

competitive greed continually shatter harmony - between individuals,

between tribes and nations, and

between us and the rest of the biosphere. Something has been going

wrong throughout recorded history, so

that the best efforts of holy men, well-meaning rulers, and knights

in shining armour to contain the

destructive urges always come unstuck. To paraphrase a famous

declaration of St Paul, the human mind

dreams of harmonies more wonderful - more gentle and loving - than

the rough but powerful balances of the

animal kingdom, yet in practice human intelligence again and again

finds itself sidetracked into the service

of greed, aggression, and even cruelty, such as would shame any

animal. And here too, science has served

to make explicit something which formerly could only be intuited in a

general way; the `unnaturalness' of human

nature, which was formerly expressed in myths about a primordial

Fall, has today become inescapable,

as the cumulative results of our intelligence threaten to destroy our

species altogether, and maybe even the

whole planet.

When I was young, and the nuclear arms race was just beginning to

make these dangers apparent,

scientists and religious folk alike thought in terms of

humanity's `higher ideals' battling with `lower animal

instincts' - but we know now that if our instincts were really animal

the drives towards harmony would always

contain the destructive ones. It is at the level of mind or spirit

itself that something goes wrong, and I believe

it's a gut realisation of this fact that finds expression in the

popularity of detective fiction, where in all the best

stories the harmony-shattering act of violence is tracked down to a

source quite unexpected by the society

concerned; the hidden villain turns out to be someone who, until the

denouement, is considered beyond

suspicion.

True, in the very early days of the genre this feature was by no

means universal: in fact one famous classic,

Poe's Murders in the Rue Morgue, is a perfect expression of the

belief that our troubles spring from animal

instincts getting out of rational control - the murders are

eventually traced to an escaped savage ape! But as

the art-form developed, the main focus came to be on the author's

skill in finding ingenious ways to keep the

villain above suspicion until the end, and the Detection Club even

drew up rules about it. On the hypothesis I

 

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have been developing here, this can be seen as something more than a

need to tickle the reader's

crossword-solving faculty: it is nothing less than a new mythological

form for understanding humanity's great

existential problem of evil.

Against this background, the extraordinary success of The Mousetrap

would imply that it contains some

particularly acute, nerve-touching insight into the origin of evil in

the human psyche, and I believe this to be

indeed the case. For the play gives a very special twist to

the `least likely suspect' theme, a twist anticipated

occasionally in earlier stories (for example, in more than one by G K

Chesterton), but never (to my

knowledge) before put into drama form, the mode which appeals most

directly to the mythopoeic

imagination. After all these years of exposure on the London stage, I

don't think I shall be giving away any

secret by mentioning what that twist is. At the end of The Mousetrap

the detective himself, the young

policeman who appears as the protector of the innocent and the

guardian of law and order, turns out to be

the murderer. I find a clear echo here of a theme expressed in

different ways in many of the world's ancient

Fall myths, but most clearly in the one which, more than any other,

has exercised emotional appeal across

many different cultures - the biblical story in which the Loss of

Eden comes about because of a `snaky'

temptation to assume a divine role of moral guardianship, `knowing

good and evil'.

I would translate this as a diagnosis that the responsibility for

humanity's destructiveness lies with the very

element in the psyche that purports to aim at harmony, the moral

impulse - not that it is too weak, as

conventional social wisdom assumes, but that it usurps power and

tries to control all other impulses by judging

and repressing. `The punisher alone is the criminal of Providence,'

wrote the mystical poet William Blake

– and this too is something we are in a better position to understand

today than any earlier generation,

thanks to the detailed investigations of psychologists and

sociologists.

There is now ample evidence that behind all really violent and

destructive human behaviour, whether it be

the ridiculously excessive ambitions of military conquerors and

empire-building capitalists, or the sadism of

tyrants great and small, or the insatiable violence of the rapist, or

the blind destructiveness of the hoodlum

or child-batterer, there lies a screaming protest on the part of some

much more limited desire that has been

repressed by overweening morality – in society, in the family, or in

the individual psyche itself. And on the

other side of the same coin, egoistic, aggressive and destructive

urges become really dangerous and

outrageous precisely when they are moralised and amplified by

righteous indignation. The inquisition really

did think they were saving souls, and while mere greed or ambition

would never lead any sane person to

plunge the world into nuclear winter, a holy war might easily do so.

`Better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven' were words which

Milton put into the mouth of Satan himself.

His poem followed much Christian tradition in linking the biblical

story of paradise lost with yet another

ancient myth, thereby giving it a definite whodunit flavour of its

own by suggesting that the serpent was just

a disguise for the cosmic Mr Big - Lucifer, the Archangel of Light

who subverts humanity in the course of

trying to usurp the role of God. The moral impulse, or `conscience',

could indeed be described as the angel

(i.e. messenger) of light in the human psyche, and the loss of Eden

myth unmasks its constant tendency to

get above itself and rule the roost instead of simply serving life.

Thus a vicious circle is created, because

repression and moralisation exaggerate the very impulses they claim

to control, thereby giving `conscience'

the excuse for still more repressive measures and still more moral

outrage against others. This was why

Blake went beyond Milton's interpretation of the story and

represented Satan as having to all intents and

purposes taken over the place of God in most religions, Christianity

included, by making them agents of

repressive moralising. That, he argued, was why Jesus " died as a

reprobate……punished as a

transgressor " – because he had seen what was going on in the world

and tried to reverse the process by

urging " mutual forgiveness of each vice " , only to have his name and

image taken over in their turn to serve

repression and moral indignation.

The Mousetrap doesn't attempt to pursue the story into these depths:

its villain simply gets killed at the end,

much as in most other whodunits. But Chesterton did take that extra

step: Father Brown never sought

punishment or death for his villains, but unmasked them only as a

first step in trying to redeem them. For

Blake that was the ultimate life goal both in society and the psyche

itself, to " have pity on the punisher " and

restore the moral sense to its proper role as servant of life, by

subordinating its judgements to forgiveness –

or as Shakespeare's Portia famously said long before " And earthly

power doth then show likest

God's/When mercy seasons justice " . Blake had the mystics' vision that

while no individual can make more

than a small impact on the patterns of society by pursuing this goal,

determined exposure of satanic

 

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judgementalism within the psyche will open up direct experience of

eternity even in the midst of the world's

unresolved conflicts. He identified this as " the Everlasting Gospel

of Jesus " , yet he also insisted that " All

Religions are One " prior to satanic perversion. And in our own day

this insight, expressed in different terms,

has been the core `gospel' of Krishnamurti, who stood apart from all

formal religion: he urged the regular

practice of non-judgemental `choiceless awareness' as a way of

opening to the eternal. Maybe it was no

coincidence that he was a detective story buff.

The ending of any detective story after the unmasking of the villain

is inevitably something of an anticlimax1

and in my view one of Blake's most powerful insights was that the

unmasking of the Great Originator of Sin

in human life brings something of the same feeling. Like the Wizard

of Oz, pretension is the essence of

Lucifer's power in the world and in the psyche: unmasked, he becomes

something of a joke:

Truly, my Satan, thou art but a Dunce,

And doth not know the Garment from the Man.

Every Harlot was a Virgin once,

Nor canst thou ever change Kate into Nan.

Tho' thou art Worship'd by the Names Divine

Of Jesus and Jehovah, thou art still

The Son of Morn in weary Night's decline,

The lost Traveller's Dream under the Hill.

Perhaps that was what Chesterton was getting at, in a different

idiom, when he said that if humanity were to

be sufficiently struck with a sense of humour, we would find

ourselves automatically fulfilling the Sermon on

the Mount. And perhaps too it's why the murderer's motivation in The

Name of the Rose is suppression of

humour. So do join me as a detective buff, for the sheer fun of it -

and do go to see The Mousetrap if you're

in London - it's fun even if you

know the end.

This essay has been selected in the USA for studying in universities

as an example both of drama criticism

and good writing.