Characters
The Big Four's characters are typical ethnic and national stereotypes of 1920s British fiction, with the Chinese characters typecast as Fu Manchu-esque bandits. Other key villains include a French femme fatale and a vulgar American multimillionaire. These characters implement conspiracies and undetectable poisonings operated from a super-secret underground hideout.
The book also features Achille Poirot, Hercule's twin brother (later revealed to be Hercule Poirot himself in 'disguise'), and an eventual double agent, the beautiful Countess Vera Rossakoff, who is portrayed as a stereotypical aventurière and down-at-the-heels Russian ex-aristocrat of the pre-October Revolution period.
Read more about this topic: The Big Four (novel)
Famous quotes containing the word characters:
“Animals are stylized characters in a kind of old saga—stylized because even the most acute of them have little leeway as they play out their parts.”
—Edward Hoagland (b. 1932)
“Of the other characters in the book there is, likewise, little to say. The most endearing one is obviously the old Captain Maksim Maksimich, stolid, gruff, naively poetical, matter-of- fact, simple-hearted, and completely neurotic.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“There are as many characters in men
As there are shapes in nature.”
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)