Revenge in Agatha Christie’s the Unexpected Guest and Five Little Pigs

This study is conducted to find out how psychology is applied in the two detective novels entitled The Unexpected Guest and Five Little Pigs which share the same issue that is revenge because both detective novels are written in the same period and come from the same country. This study is a psychological study of literature, focusing on the psychological aspects and patterns of action of the revenge in the two detective novels entitled The Unexpected Guest and Five Little Pigs. The purposes of the study are: 1) to describe and to know the patterns of action of the revenge in Agatha Christie’s The Unexpected Guest and Five Little Pigs, 2) to find and describe psychological factors which are shaping the act of revenge in the two detective novels. Therefore the psychological approach is used to do the analysis in this study. The main data in this study were taken from the two detective novels. The theories applied include theory of formula of classic detective fiction (patterns of action) in detective story, theory of psychology especially Sigmund Freud personality theory, theory of plot structure in Dorothy L. Sayers’ Strong Poison and theory of pattern in Ten Little Indians. This study is written scientifically and used qualitative approach with psychology as the focus. The analysis was done by using the theories as the basis source to compare with findings. The use of theories in the analysis of the two detective novels shown that both analysis and the theories are matched. After doing the analysis based on the findings in this study, it reveals that both The Unexpected Guest and Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie share the same case of psychological revenge that is raised for the unfair treatments experienced by Laura Warwick and Caroline Crale as the murderer characters in the two detective novels. The result of the analysis shows that both detective novels contain five patterns of action of the revenge namely introduction of the detective, crime and clues, investigation, solution of the crime and denouement. As Freud’s personality theory reveals that Laura Warwick in The Unexpected Guest had five characteristics as psychological factors which are shaping her action of revenge to Richard Warwick. Those characteristics are depressing, grudge, greedy, submissive and brilliant. Meanhwile in Five Little Pigs, Caroline Crale also had five characteristics as psychological factors which are shaping her action of revenge to Amyas Crale. Those characteristics covered jealous, hurtful, betrayed, ill-tempered and desperate. In the end of this study, hopefully there are some other aspects that need to be investigated in Agatha Christie’s The Unexpected Guest and Five Little Pigs, such as the use of “may have, must have, could have and would have” in the two detective novels mentioned above.