Poirot is a Roman Catholic by birth, and retains a strong sense of Catholic morality later in life. In Taken at the Flood , he further claimed to have been raised and educated by nuns, raising the possibility that he and any siblings were orphaned. As an adult, Poirot joined the Belgian police force. Very little mention is made in Christie's work about this part of his life, but in " The Nemean Lion " Poirot himself refers to a Belgian case of his in which "a wealthy soap manufacturer […] poisoned his wife in order to be free to marry his secretary".
We do not know whether this case resulted in a successful prosecution or not; moreover, Poirot is not above lying in order to produce a particular effect in the person to whom he is speaking, so this evidence is not reliable. Inspector Japp gives some insight into Poirot's career with the Belgian police when introducing him to a colleague:.
In the short story The Chocolate Box Poirot provides Captain Arthur Hastings with an account of what he considers to be his only failure. Poirot admits that he has failed to solve a crime "innumerable" times:. Nevertheless, he regards the case in "The Chocolate Box", which took place in , as his only actual failure of detection. Again, Poirot is not reliable as a narrator of his personal history and there is no evidence that Christie sketched it out in any depth.
It was also in this period that Poirot shot a man who was firing from a roof onto the public below. Poirot has retired from the Belgian police force by the time that he meets Hastings in on the case retold in The Mysterious Affair at Styles. It should be noted that Poirot is a French-speaking Belgian, i. At the time of writing, at least of the earlier books where the character was defined, non-Belgians such as Agatha Christie were far less aware than nowadays of the deep linguistic divide in Belgian society.
It was here, on 16 July , that he again met his lifelong friend, Captain Arthur Hastings, and solved the first of his cases to be published: The Mysterious Affair at Styles. After that case, Poirot apparently came to the attention of the British secret service, and undertook cases for the British government, including foiling the attempted abduction of the Prime Minister.
After the war, Poirot became a free agent and began undertaking civilian cases. It was chosen by Poirot for its symmetry. His first case was " The Affair at the Victory Ball ", which saw Poirot enter the high society and begin his career as a private detective.
Between the world wars, Poirot traveled all over Europe and the Middle East investigating crimes and murders. Most of his cases happened during this period and he was at the height of his powers at this point in his life. Murder on the Links saw the Belgian pit his grey cells against a French murderer. In the Middle East, he solved Murder on the Orient Express though the bulk of the story takes place in the territory of the former Yugoslavia , the Death on the Nile , and the Murder in Mesopotamia with ease and even survived Appointment with Death.
However, he did not travel to the Americas or Australia, probably due to his seasickness. It was during this time he met the Countess Vera Rossakoff , a glamorous jewel thief. The history of the Countess is, like Poirot's, steeped in mystery.
She claims to have been a member of the Russian aristocracy before the Russian Revolution and suffered greatly as a result, but how much of that story is true is an open question. Even Poirot acknowledges that Rossakoff has told several wildly varying accounts of her early life.
Poirot later became smitten with the woman and allowed her to escape justice. Although letting the Countess escape may be morally questionable, that impulse to take the law into his own hands was far from unique. In "The Nemean Lion", he sided with the criminal, Miss Amy Carnaby, and saved her from having to face justice by blackmailing his client Sir Joseph Hoggins, who himself was plotting murder and was unwise enough to let Poirot discover this. Poirot even sent Miss Carnaby two hundred pounds as a final payoff before her dog kidnapping campaign came to an end.
In The Murder of Roger Ackroyd he allowed the murderer to escape justice through suicide and then ensured the truth was never known to spare the feelings of the murderer's relatives. In "The Augean Stables" he helped the government to cover up vast corruption, even though it might be considered more honest to let the truth come out. After his cases in the Middle East, Poirot returned to Britain.
Apart from some of the so-called "Labours of Hercules" see next section he very rarely traveled abroad during his later career. There is a great deal of confusion about Poirot's retirement. Most of the cases covered by Poirot's private detective agency take place before his retirement to grow marrows, at which time he solves The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
It has been said that twelve cases related in The Labours of Hercules must refer to a different retirement, but the fact that Poirot specifically says that he intends to grow marrows indicates that these stories also take place before Roger Ackroyd , and presumably Poirot closed his agency once he had completed them. There is specific mention in "The Capture of Cerberus" to the fact that there has been a gap of twenty years between Poirot's previous meeting with Countess Rossakoff and this one.
If the Labours precede the events in Roger Ackroyd , then the Roger Ackroyd case must have taken place around twenty years later than it was published, and so must any of the cases that refer to it. One alternative would be that having failed to grow marrows once, Poirot is determined to have another go, but this is specifically denied by Poirot himself. Another alternative would be to suggest that the Preface to the Labours takes place on one date but that the labours are completed over a matter of twenty years.
None of the explanations is especially attractive. Receive today's headlines directly to your inbox every morning and evening, with our free daily newsletter.
Enter email address This field is required Sign Up. As with Holmes though, it quickly became apparent that the character was bigger than the plot; the sort of character that actors wanted to play. Laughton was an unlikely choice, better known for his barnstorming theatrical style think Captain Bligh in his Mutiny on the Bounty than for the quiet fussiness of the detective.
But audiences, many of whom probably hadn't read any Christie, came for Laughton and left with a liking for the character. In Claude Austin Trevor Schilsky born in Belfast in October and known by his stage name Austin Trevor became the first actor to play Poirot on screen, in the film version of Alibi.
He played him a few more times in the Thirties, but without much success. Eighty-six years on, in , another Belfast-born actor, Kenneth Branagh, played Poirot in a hugely expensive version of Murder on the Orient Express.
Branagh returns to the role later this year with a version of Death on the Nile. Like Laughton, Branagh played the character his own way and not particularly faithful to Christie's idea of Poirot. Interestingly, there are also some lovely touches of Poirot in Daniel Craig's portrayal of private detective Benoit Blanc in the recent film Knives Out, a delicious pastiche of big-house murder mysteries.
Two, of course, stand out: Peter Ustinov and David Suchet. Ustinov played him six times between and ; three big-screen, star-studded, enormously successful feature films Death on the Nile, the best of them and then three made-for-television versions. He isn't at all like that! But the Poirot shoes that all future actors must try and fill belong to David Suchet. For a generation he is Hercule Poirot, their Hercule Poirot. From the time he sits down and "thinks" with Dr.
Constantine and M. Bouc, Poirot knows the solution of the case—it is merely a matter of confirming his suspicions. Poirot is a very likable character, despite his moral and intellectual greatness. He is over concerned with appearance, distracted by his moustache and has a liking for strong-willed British women a. He is rather short, slightly snobby and probably lonely at times.
It is good Christie gives him cases so often. Hercule Poirot, through Christie's novels, is said to have aged to SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook. According to the characteristics of the detective story, the detective should be ruled by logic rather than by emotions. Taking into consideration the fact that Miss Garnet is a friend of the suspect, Poirot may not want to hurt her feelings by proving that Donovan Bailey is guilty. This implies that Poirot treats Patricia with more sympathy than an average client of his.
Apart from that, in Death on the Nile Poirot also seems to be emotionally affected, this time, by the suspect. He hopes that the girl, Jacqueline de Bellefort, with whom he spoke openly at the beginning of their trip, is not the person who murdered Linnet Doyle. Hercule Poirot is also an example of great politeness.
Another characteristic of Hercule Poirot is that he is a well-organised and careful man. It means that for him everything should fit and create a logical entity. When facts do not correspond to each other in a logical way, Poirot is anxious about the situation The document consists of several elements.
First of all, there is data where, at what time and by whom the victim was last seen alive. Secondly, the list of people who have an alibi for the time from when the murdered woman was last seen until the moment of the murder.
The names of the people who definitely did not commit the crime are also included. The last part of the document includes a list of people with possible motives for the murder and objections to the speculations of their blame.
In Death on the Nile Poirot shows that he has his own rules. He participates in the trip for his pleasure — he is on holiday — and he does not work during his time of leisure. That is why he does not take any money from Linnet Doyle for helping her with the problem of persecution. As a private detective Poirot is free to choose in which way to hold the investigation.
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