Ariadne Oliver
| Ariadne Oliver | |
|---|---|
| First appearance | Parker Pyne Investigates |
| Last appearance | Elephants Can Remember |
| Created by | Agatha Christie |
| Portrayed by | Lally Bowers, Jean Stapleton, Zoë Wanamaker, Julia McKenzie, Stephanie Cole |
| Information | |
| Gender | Female |
| Occupation | Crime/detective fiction writer |
| Family | Alice (aunt) Celia Ravenscroft (goddaughter) |
Ariadne Oliver is a fictional character in the novels of Agatha Christie. She is a mystery novelist and a friend of Hercule Poirot.
Mrs Oliver often assists Poirot in his cases through her knowledge of the criminal mind. She often claims to be endowed with particular "feminine intuition", but it usually leads her astray. She is particularly fond of apples, which becomes a plot point in the novel Hallowe'en Party.
In the books, Oliver's most famous works are those featuring her vegetarian Finnish detective Sven Hjerson. Since she knows nothing of Finland, Oliver frequently laments Hjerson's existence. In many of her appearances, Oliver – and her feelings toward Hjerson – reflect Agatha Christie's own frustrations as an author, particularly with the Belgian Hercule Poirot (an example of self-insertion). The self-caricature has also been used to discuss Christie's own follies in her earlier novels. For instance, in Mrs McGinty's Dead, Mrs Oliver talks of having made the blowpipe a foot long (30 cm) in one of her novels, whereas the actual length is something like four-and-a-half feet (1 1⁄2 yards (140 cm)) – the same mistake Christie made in Death in the Clouds.
In The Pale Horse, Mrs Oliver becomes acquainted with the Rev and Mrs Dane Calthrop, who are friends of Miss Marple (The Moving Finger), thus establishing that Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot exist in the same world. In Cards on the Table, there is a reference to Mrs Oliver's book The Body in the Library; this title was used by Christie six years later, for a novel featuring Miss Marple. Books by Ariadne Oliver and by a number of other fictitious mystery writers are discussed by characters in The Clocks (1963). Like Christie, she is a member of the Detection Club. Christie even thought of setting a murder at the Club with Oliver being one of the suspects as well as the detective, but it came to nothing. (Although in Cards on the Table, Mrs Oliver plays detective in a Poirot mystery of a murder during a bridge game). A family crisis for Oliver’s goddaughter Celia provides the plot in Elephants Can Remember.
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