The Mousetrap

“The North Wind doth blow / And it will bring snow / And what will the robin do then, poor thing?” 

Christopher sings this nursery rhyme. It is a red herring because the murderer wrote a note containing “Three Blind Mice” and left it on the first victim’s body. Christopher shares his delight with nursery rhymes with the murderer (Detective Sergeant Trotter / Georgie Corrigan). This child-like fascination could stem from the fact that they were both traumatized by their experiences in the army, which caused them to desert.

“Oh, I like murder.” 

This is another quote by Christopher that causes other characters, especially Giles, to suspect he is the murderer. It also helps set up Christie’s subversion of the norms of detective fiction. Fans of this genre share Christopher’s fascination with the macabre, and this quote leads them to believe that Christopher, or another guest of Monkswell Manor, is the murderer. A red herring like this helps hide the twist that it is, in fact, the investigator, rather than any guest, who is the murderer.

“Terrible female—if she is a female.” 

Here, Giles speaks to Mollie about Miss Casewell, who is described as having masculine characteristics. Miss Casewell defies the expectations that come with being female, and this causes Giles to feel uneasy and suspicious. While Miss Casewell is engaging in deception, it is not about hiding her gender, but rather hiding her identity as the murderer’s sister.

“Ice on a bedroom jug, chilblains, raw and bleeding—one thin ragged blanket—a child shivering with cold and fear.” 

When Miss Casewell says this to Christopher, it is to test his reaction. Katherine is looking for her brother; both Christopher and Georgie are army deserters and are around the same age. This description of the trauma Katherine and Georgie endured does not ring any bells for Christopher, so Miss Casewell quickly moves off the subject. She pretends this passage was a piece of writing and then immediately denies she is a writer to confuse Christopher and continue hiding her identity.

“We’re going to be snowed up for days.” 

Mollie says this line after hearing various weather reports: from the radio, newspaper, and guests. Snow is a symbolic part of the play’s set as well as its dialogue. The snowstorm in The Mousetrap creates a conflict with nature that leads to conflict between characters, specifically by trapping people in Monkswell Manor with a murderer. The combination of the visual and auditory representations of isolation heightens suspense and tension.

“What do you know of me? Nothing at all!” 

This line is spoken by Paravicini to Mollie regarding the fact that he arrived unexpectedly at the guest house without a reservation or reference. The over-the-top nature of his character makes him seem suspicious, but an audience familiar with the conventions of detective fiction might see Paravicini as too suspicious. In fact, he is not the murderer; he uses antics to hide his identity as a thief. Through his eccentricities, Paravicini develops the theme of constructed identity.

“And perhaps you know just as little of your other guests.” 

This is another line by Paravicini to Mollie, but this time comparing himself to the other guests. This comparison highlights the fact that everyone has something to hide. Characters use varying degrees of disguises—from simply giving a false name to a more elaborate con that includes falsifying multiple identities. This highlights the idea that a person is always partly unknowable, even if their only secret is buying an anniversary present, like Giles.

“Two boys and a girl. Brought before the court as in need of care and protection [...] One of the children subsequently died.” 

In this passage, Georgie Corrigan—while pretending to be Sergeant Trotter—recounts his past to everyone at Monkswell Manor. His disguise allows Georgie to tell the truth if he can convey it in the way a stereotypical investigator would. He constructs his identity using the conventions of detective fiction. The fact that he is the murderer and able to use this method of disguise challenges these genre conventions.

“Lyon wasn’t her real name. [...] Her real name was Maureen Stanning.” 

In revealing that the first murder victim had a hidden identity, Trotter foreshadows the other hidden identities of the guests at Monkswell Manor—including his own. The audience never learns the real names of multiple characters—the policeman disguised as Metcalf and Christopher. Thematically, this creates a duality between name and identity.

“Below the two addresses was written ‘Three Blind Mice.’ And on the dead woman’s body was a paper with ‘This is the First’ written on it.”

Trotter also reveals these details about the murder. Christie’s original title for The Mousetrap was Three Blind Mice, which is repeated, both musically and in dialogue, throughout the play. The connection between children’s texts, like nursery rhymes, and detective fiction have developed over the years. Christie is an innovator of this trend, which can be seen in modern works such as Sue Grafton’s alphabet series of murder mysteries. This connection gives a darker tone to the idea of childhood, connecting to the abuse the Corrigan suffered as children.

“Life’s what you make of it. Go straight ahead—don’t look back.” 

Miss Casewell says this to Mollie regarding her difficult childhood. At this point, Mollie does not realize Miss Casewell is her old student, Katherine Corrigan. Katherine’s philosophy about how to handle trauma in this quote allows her to carry on a relatively normal life compared to her murderous brother. Her gender allowed Katherine to mold her life in a way her brother could not; as a woman, she was not drafted to serve in World War II.

“Unless he’s here already.” 

This is another moment of dramatic irony when Trotter is supposedly a policeman speaking about a criminal but is speaking about himself, the criminal, in the third person. 

“He moves to the window, jumps out and bends down, looking, then disappears out of sight. It is practically dark [...] She shuts the window.”

These are the stage directions for Trotter and Mrs. Boyle immediately prior to her murder. The pretense of looking at the telephone to see if it has been cut takes Trotter out of the window. He already knows it has been cut (because he is the one who cut it), so this allows him to come around to another entrance and kill Mrs. Boyle. However, if the audience is unaware that Trotter cut the wire, this action makes him appear to be innocent of the murder. In this way, these stage directions are visual red herrings that keep the twist ending a surprise.

“If he came home after being a [POW], perhaps, and having suffered terribly [...] he might go off his head a bit.” 

Here, Mollie casts suspicion on Georgie Corrigan’s father to Georgie while he is disguised as Trotter. While Mollie is wrong about the identity of the murderer, she does touch on the trauma of war, which is shared by Georgie and Christopher. Christie set The Mousetrap shortly after World War II. Georgie’s violence, because it is partially rooted in war-related trauma, evokes the literature of the English interwar period, when writers like Virginia Woolf wrote about the men traumatized by World War I.

“I know it sounds very melodramatic—but he might be disguised.” 

Mollie also tries to cast suspicion on Paravicini, claiming he is much younger than he appears. This quote emphasizes the varying degrees of costuming and disguise and conning used by different characters. Identities are constructed for several reasons. In Paravicini’s case, disguise covers the crime of theft, not murder.

“Especially since the war. Homes broken up and families dead [...] she doesn’t find out he’s an absconding bank clerk, or an army deserter or something equally undesirable.” 

This is another quote that speaks to the theme of trauma. Despite how traumatized men became by their military service, it was still considered disreputable and criminal to desert in WWII. The criminality of this act was due to the mandatory nature of service: England conscripted, or drafted, soldiers—men of a certain age were not given a choice. Trauma forced new identities onto people like Christopher, who is coded as gay and who wanted to avoid persecution for leaving the army.

“I’m in the position now where I’ve got to put myself in the place of a crazy cunning brain. I’ve got to ask myself what he wants us to do and what he, himself, is planning to do next.” 

Georgie, disguised as Trotter, is talking about himself in the third person. The repetition of this pronoun slippage throughout the play is developed by the inclusion of “himself” as well as “he” in this passage. Furthermore, this quote integrates the first-person “I” and “myself” of the Trotter disguise alongside the use of the third-person pronouns for Georgie to show the layers of identity construction.

“Six impossible things before breakfast like the Red Queen.”

Christopher alludes to Alice in Wonderland while talking to Trotter. Christopher’s use of a children’s book allusion is another red herring for him being a murderer who would leave notes with nursery rhymes on victims. The allusion also speaks to how both men—both deserters—have child-like qualities; the trauma of war causes arrested development and/or regression.

“Dear me—you look as though you’d seen a ghost.” 

This is another moment of Christopher speaking to Trotter. Trotter has just begun to realize that Miss Casewell is his sister (Katherine Corrigan), which he is having trouble believing and processing. The figurative ghost speaks to Christopher’s child-like love of the macabre, but also to the ghost of another private, secret identity (Katherine) haunting a public identity (Miss Casewell) as well as her brother.

“Little Bo Policeman has lost his skis and doesn’t know where to find them. Leave them alone, and they’ll come home, dragging a murderer behind them.” 

Paravicini taunts Trotter with a nursery rhyme. This can be read as another example of a red herring casting suspicion on Paravicini. It is also a hint that the real policeman, disguised as Metcalf, finally managed to gain some control of the situation by taking away the murderer’s means of escape.

“It’s a trap.” 

Mollie says this in response to Trotter’s request that they reenact their movements during the time of Mrs. Boyle’s murder. She is, in fact, correct; Georgie (disguised as Trotter) is trying to get her alone so he can kill her. The Trotter disguise allows the murderer to exploit the structure of police investigations.

“I wanted to forget—forget.” 

When Trotter gets Mollie alone at the end of the play, he asks why she did not share information about Mrs. Boyle; this is her response. She avoids reflecting on her time as the Corrigan children’s schoolteacher. The guilt over not getting Jimmy Corrigan’s letter in time to save his life kept her from telling Giles, or anyone else, about her past. In other words, Mollie handles trauma by repressing it.

“You know who I am.” 

This is the moment when Trotter confesses that he is Georgie Corrigan to Mollie, right before he attempts to kill her. His confession speaks to the theme of identity—who he appeared to be is finally discarded for who he truly is. This twist centers on unmasking a known murderer rather than deducing the name of a murderer. The killer being the investigator upends the conventions of detective fiction.