Crooked House

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“Christie Interview: The Morality of Edith’s Actions”

In this activity, students will demonstrate their understanding of Christie’s perspective on evil by writing an interview in which Christie evaluates the morality of Edith’s actions in killing Josephine.

After reading Crooked House, you should have a good idea of how Agatha Christie viewed evil. Not everyone would agree with her perspective, however. Imagine that you are a journalist interviewing Christie for an article about Crooked House and its perspective on evil. You are particularly interested in hearing Christie’s opinions about Edith’s choice to kill herself and Josephine at the end of the book. For this activity, you will write an interview-style article that is about two pages in which you explore Christie’s interpretation of Edith’s actions.

Your article should satisfy the following criteria:

• Be set up in a standard interview format—see this article as a formatting example
• Use distinct voices for you (as the interviewer) and Christie (as the interviewee)
• Convey your understanding of Christie’s beliefs about what evil is and where it comes from
• Convey your understanding of Christie’s perspective on the morality of Edith’s actions
• Offer evidence from Crooked House to defend the arguments you are making on behalf of Agatha Christie.