The Mousetrap

The Mousetrap

• Genre: Play; mystery
• Originally Published: 1950
• Reading Level/Interest: College/Adult
• Structure/Length: Two acts, two scenes; approx. 70 pages
• Protagonist/Central Conflict: Seven strangers are snowed in at a remote guesthouse in the country. A police sergeant arrives and tells them there is a killer among them, and the strangers are forced to reveal their sordid pasts. But who is the killer?
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Murder; stereotypes; racial slurs

Agatha Christie, Author

• Bio: 1890-1976; English writer known as the “Queen of Crime” for her detective novels and for writing the world’s longest-running play, The Mousetrap; studied voice and piano in Paris at 16; served as a nurse during WWI; wrote over 70 detective and mystery novels in her lifetime, many adapted to stage plays and film; earned the Mystery Writers of America's Grand Master Award in 1955; awarded the title of Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1971; holds the title of the most-translated individual author and a Guinness World Record for best-selling fiction writer of all time with more than two billion copies sold
• Other Works: Murder on the Orient Express (1934); Death on the Nile (1937); And Then There Were None (1939); A Pocket Full of Rye (1953); Sleeping Murder (1976)

CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:

• The Construction of Identity
• The Legacy of Trauma
• The Conventions of Detective Fiction

STUDY OBJECTIVES: In accomplishing the components of this Unit, students will:

• Develop an understanding of the cultural and historical contexts regarding detective fiction plays that drive the characters’ conflict.
• Analyze paired texts and other brief resources to make connections via the text’s themes of Identity, Trauma, and Conventions.
• Plan, design, and compose a scene of a play using a nursery rhyme based on text details.
• Analyze and evaluate plot and character details to draw conclusions in structured essay responses regarding red herrings, nursery rhymes, and other topics.