The Murder of Roger Ackroyd in Relation to Auden's "The Guilty Vicarage" Amy Jenkinson 12th Grade

According to Auden's essay "The Guilty Vicarage," the typical formula for a detective story is the "occurrence of a murder; then, many are suspected, all but one suspect, who happens to be the murderer, are eliminated; finally the murderer is arrested or dies." The narrative of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd follows most of this formula, but diverts in places. First, there is the peaceful state before the murder and thus, the antagonist’s false innocence. However, it could be argued that before the murder, there still isn’t quite a state of peace – the novel opens announcing the death of Mrs Ferrars, which is soon discovered to be a suicide before the murder. Dr Sheppard is also uneasy, which he shows when he states that seeing Mrs Ferrars and Ralph Paton talking gave him a “foreboding” and it struck him “disagreeably”. The ‘false innocence’ Auden writes about is likely the innocence the antagonist has before they commit the murder, but since they have the intent, it is false – however, Sheppard has already committed a crime, blackmailing Mrs Ferrars to suicide, and although it isn’t revealed, Sheppard is still in this state of false innocence, but only in the idea that no one but he knows of his guilt.

Then there is the murder –...