Hallowe'en Party

In Hallowe’en Party, Poirot interviews residents of Woodleigh Common and follows up with additional interviews, asking similar questions again and again. These recurring interviews lead to considerable repeated dialogue in the novel, in which the same details are frequently recounted. Other characters, including Mrs. Oliver, complain about the slow progress of Poirot’s investigation and the circular nature of his inquiries. Poirot, however, points out that the various villagers may not be detectives, but they possess crucial information that he lacks about the personalities of potential suspects and victims. The repetition helps Poirot amass a collective well of knowledge from the community that ultimately allows him to solve the crimes.

Repeated responses in this well of community knowledge signal important details critical to the investigation. For example, two repeated sentiments recur in Poirot’s interviews: the collective opinion that Joyce Reynolds was a notorious liar and the assumption that her murder must have been perpetuated by a “deranged” person with violent tendencies resulting from a mental health condition. The collective view of the community regarding Joyce’s tendency to lie allows Poirot to accept that she did not in fact witness a murder. The latter assumption underscores the way in which the text aligns mental health concerns with innate criminality and moral failure, reflecting the prejudicial view of the period.