Poirot: Seeker of Justice or Representative of the Law? Amy Jenkinson 12th Grade

Whether Poirot is more so a seeker of justice rather than a representative of the law is an interesting concept, as it develops the idea that the law is not doing its job in finding justice, a complex critique that Christie actually explores within ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’. Although Poirot is a detective hired to work on cases such as Ackroyd’s, he is fairly unorthodox in his methods. For example, he posts a false story in the newspaper, and he convinces Dr. Sheppard to talk about his private medical conversations with a suspect. He is not a typical detective at all – he takes on cases because they interest him and uses his “little grey cells” to solve crimes. However, as unorthodox as he is, Poirot is still a detective; he is still, on a base level, a representative of the law. In her novel, Christie goes far to explore differences between moral justice and the justice of the law.

It could be argued that Poirot is a seeker of justice rather than a representative of the law, as he does not actually enforce the law. Poirot gives the criminals a choice; at the end of the novel, Poirot gives Sheppard the opportunity to kill himself rather than be turned over to the police and have his sister, Caroline, discover that he was...