Ariadne Oliver: Difference between revisions

{{Use dmy dates|date=OctoberMay 20132024}}

| name = Ariadne Oliver

| image =

| captionimage_upright = 1.15

| firstcaption = [[Zoë Wanamaker]] as Ariadne Oliver in ''[[ParkerAgatha PyneChristie's InvestigatesPoirot]]''

| lastfirst = ''[[ElephantsParker CanPyne RememberInvestigates]]''

| creatorlast = ''[[AgathaElephants Can ChristieRemember]]''

| portrayer = [[Lally Bowers]],<br />[[Jean Stapleton]],<br />[[Zoë Wanamaker]],<br />[[Julia McKenzie]],<br />[[Stephanie Cole]]<br />[[Tina Fey]]

| gender = Female

| family = Alice (aunt)<br />Celia Ravenscroft (goddaughter)
}}

'''Ariadne Oliver''' is a fictional character in the novels of [[Agatha Christie]]. She (like Christie) is a [[crime fiction|mystery]] novelist, the creator of the fictional Finnish detective Sven Hjerson, and a friend of [[Hercule Poirot]].

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 [[Blowgun|blowpipe]] a foot long (30 &nbsp;cm) in one of her novels, whereas the actual length is something like four-and-a-half feet ({{convert|1+1/2|yd|cm}}) – the same mistake Christie made in ''[[Death in the Clouds]]''.

In ''[[The Pale Horse (novel)|The Pale Horse]]'', Mrs Oliver becomes acquainted with the Rev. and Mrs Dane CalthropCalthorp, 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 (novel)|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.<ref>''Agatha Christie's Secret Notebooks'', edited by John Curran.</ref> (Although in ''[[Cards on the Table]]'', Mrs Oliver is both a suspect and aplays detective in a Poirot mystery of a murder during a bridge game).) A family crisis for Oliver’sOliver's goddaughter Celia provides the plot in ''[[Elephants Can Remember]]''.

Although Ariadne Oliver is consistently referred to as "Mrs. Oliver"," nothing is known about her husband. An offhand reference to her marriage is made in ''[[Elephants Can Remember]]''.

In a short piece in ''[[John Bull (magazine)|''John Bull'' Magazinemagazine]]'' in 1956, Christie was quoted as saying: "I never take my stories from real life, but the character of Ariadne Oliver does have a strong dash of myself." The author of the article went on to state: "It is perfectly true that sometimes she works at her stories in a large old-fashioned bath, eating apples and depositing the cores on the wide mahogany surround."<ref>''John Bull Magazine'', 11 August 1956. Volume 100, Number 2615 (p. 3)</ref>

EvenAriadne Oliver does not function as a detective, even in the one novel in which she appears without Poirot (''[[The Pale Horse]]''), Mrs Oliver does not function as a detective, in that she rarely participates in the investigation and contributes only tangentially to the solution. In ''[[Cards on the Table]]'', she does interview some of the suspects, which in turn allows her to discover a hidden motive that even the police were unable to find; in ''[[Elephants Can Remember]]'', she again interviews witnesses, but none of the essential ones. SheOn isthe moresurface, usuallyChristie usedappears to use Oliver mainly for [[comic relief]] or to provide a [[deus ex machina]] through her intuitive or sudden insights, a function that is especially apparentas in ''[[Third Girl]]'', in which she furnishes Poirot with virtually every important clue, or in ''The Pale Horse'', where she inadvertently helpstips the investigators tooff determineabout the type of poison used to kill the murder victims, saving the life of another character.

The true first appearance of Mrs Oliver was a brief appearance in the short story ''"[[Parker Pyne Investigates#The Case of the Discontented Soldier|The Case of the Discontented Soldier]]''" which was first published, along with four other stories, in the August 1932 issue of the U.S. version of ''[[Cosmopolitan (magazine)|Cosmopolitan]]'' magazine (issue number 554) under the sub-heading of ''Are You Happy? If Not Consult Mr. Parker Pyne''. The story first appeared in the UK in issue 614 of ''Woman's Pictorial'' on 15 October 1932, and was later published in book form in 1934 as ''[[Parker Pyne Investigates]]'' (titled ''Mr. Parker Pyne, Detective'' in the USA). Within this story she appeared as part of Pyne's unorthodox team of freelance assistants. Within the same book, she also briefly appears in ''The Case of the Rich Woman''.

* ''[[The Pale Horse (novel)|The Pale Horse]]'' (1961) —– Oliver's only appearance in a Christie novel without Poirot

* ''Hercule Poirot and the Greenshore Folly'' (2014) -– a novella that was later expanded and published as ''Dead Man's Folly''.

In ''[[The first appearance of Ariadne Oliver on television was inClocks]]'', an episode of ''The [[Agatha Christie's HourPoirot]]'', (1982).Poirot Insees ana adaptationplay ofby theAriadne ParkerOliver Pynewhich storyfeatures ''The Case of the Discontented Soldier''Hjerson, shewho wasis portrayedplayed by [[LallyAndrew BowersHavill]].

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[[Category:FictionalLiterary characters introduced in 19341932]]