The Body in the Library

Jane Marple, the sharp-eyed amateur sleuth at the center of The Body in the Library, is the story’s hero, even though, for the first half of the novel, she has relatively few scenes. Christie portrays Miss Marple as outwardly mild-mannered and “spinsterish,” but the interest of the character lies in the juxtaposition between exterior and interior: Outwardly, her mild demeanor conforms to popular stereotypes about older, unmarried women, but beneath this misleading surface is an intellect that puts seasoned detectives to shame. Roughly in her seventies, Marple lives in the (fictional) village of St. Mary Mead, about 25 miles from London, which is the setting for many of Christie’s whodunnits. Marple’s thorough knowledge of the seemingly placid St. Mary Mead, and the often-furtive lives of its residents, has gifted her with an intimate familiarity with “evil,” which proves invaluable in her investigations. Frequently, in The Body in the Library and other murder cases, Marple interprets events and actions by comparing them to more mundane incidents in her village, signifying how human nature and happenstance tend to repeat themselves through every layer of life. For instance, in The Body in the Library, her memory of a village child who impishly hid a frog in a clock suggests to her that the titular corpse may have placed in