This paper uses corpus-stylistics to examine gender roles in the characterisation style of Agatha Christie’s two famous detectives, Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple. The object of the analysis was two corpora, each consisting of five novels featuring one of the detectives.
In order to assess the representation of gender in these characters, the theoretical framework is divided into four sections: a description of the theory of stylistics, including feminist stylistics and narrative stylistics; an account of the changing gender roles in England from 1980 until after the Second World War; an explanation of the theories of social and discursive construction of gender; and a description of the principles of characterisation, together and account of the stereotypical fictional male and female characters.
The methodology section described corpus stylistics as being a combination of stylistics and corpus linguistics. One of the advantages of this method is that it enables both a quantitative and a qualitative analysis, which enriches the findings and increases their level of objectivity.
The results of the analysis presented tendencies in the characterisation of the two detectives which confirmed the critics’ claim that although Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple are mostly characterised following gender stereotypes, they also redefine gender relations by presenting some atypical gender traits.
The style in the characterisation was found to be based on comparative structures, metaphors, and repetition of lexical items that trigger schemata in the reader.