Oliver is drawn as a monster of selfishness who has been ruthless about using and discarding other people according to his own needs.

Which characters seem to have the strongest motives for murdering Nathan Oliver? Are there any characters that can be ruled out immediately?Ħ. In the opening chapters leading up to the first murder, James provides careful background histories for all of the characters on the island.

Why does James raise so many questions about Oliver’s physical and psychological state before the reader learns that he is dead? What does his recurrent dream suggest ? Does this dream, as well as Oliver’s reaction to it, present a case for suicide?ĥ. Oliver is outraged at the loss of his blood sample, and Emily Holcombe wonders whether he might be going mad. What was wrong with the man? He was only sixty-eight, hardly more than late middle-aged by modern reckoning, but he looked over eighty”. Nathan Oliver is noted, in book 1, chapter 3, to have aged prematurely: “Something-was it confidence, arrogance, hope?-had seeped out of him. What are the effects of these subplots on the reader?Ĥ. The romance plot for James’s main characters is always subordinate to a more urgent crime plot. Dalgliesh’s love for Emma and his inability to spend time with her cause him a great deal of anxiety throughout the story. Kate’s unexpected romantic liaison with Piers Tarrant is mentioned early in the novel later she comes to recognize that her love for Adam Dalgliesh is hopeless. Whom would you consider the main character in the story? Does the narrative style cause you to identify with a single main character, or does it give equal access to the minds of all characters? Is Dalgliesh more emotionally remote than Kate? Is Kate the person with whom the reader is most closely engaged? Among the islanders and visitors, which characters are most likable?ģ.

How are these three different in their family backgrounds, and how are they similar in temperament? What do they have in common? How are they each well adapted to the requirements of their profession?Ģ. Early on, we are given psychological profiles of three main characters who have figured in earlier James novels: Adam Dalgliesh, Kate Miskin, and Francis Benton-Smith.

The lighthouse book pd james