Miss Lemon...she adores her employer, I always thought captain Hastings or Hercule Poirot would marry her. Or couldn't Poirot forget his russian Lady? ;-)
I Can't see Miss Lemon ever marrying, I don't think she would put up with any mans lazyiness, I think that her and Poirot could be happy Flat mates though.
Flat mates, yes indeed! We don't know a lot of Miss Lemon, she's an excellent secretary, but what are her hobbies? Does she have brothers or sisters or a mother she takes care of ? Or does she have a "secret" love ? I think we'll never know :-(
I think Hastings likes the type of woman who would pander to his ego so he probably just tolerates Miss Lemon for Poirot's sake and Miss Lemon olerates Hastings because he is the Employee of Poirot so she has to.
I think Hastings likes a woman to be very feminine, and make him feel that he's their to protect them. He likes them to say nice things to him, and be sweet. Miss Lemon is effeciant and we're told that she dreams of discovering the perfect filing method. That wouldn't do for Hastings! Of course Poirot would appreciate the neatness, the order, the method of Miss Lemon. But he also liked a woman to make use of her beauty - to dress nicely, use make-up, powder, perfume. Miss Lemon never gives that impression. She's probably neatly dressed, but not someone to turn your head. And Poirot likes a show! So they wouldn't make a pair. Yes, they could probably live together as flatmates without getting on each other's nerves.
I can picture her with a really efficiant secretary to a great man - say, Pongo from Clocks.
i dont think that miss lemon adores her employer, she just adore her work and being a wife for poirot it is so imaginable thing, you can read the remarks of poirot about miss lemon's way to see and think about things
Well, Capt Hastings was very happily married to his wife Dulcie (whom he refers to often as Cinders or Cinderella) and whom he met in The Murder on the Links, long before Miss Lemon made an appearance in his and Poirot's life. And we know that Hastings has a penchant for auburn hair, so I certainly don't think he ever looked on Miss Lemon as anything more than Poirot's secretary. Even Poirot himself describes her as being 'unbelievably ugly'. The Miss Lemon of the ITV adaptations is portrayed as far more glamorous, and seems to be on a much more intimate level with Poirot & Hastings, than the Miss Lemon of the books ever was. I do think it odd that even though Hastings was happily married, he then spent so much time with Poirot leaving Dulcie to 'man the ranch' in the Argentine and bring up their four children! She obviously was a very understanding woman.
Poirot was never really interested in any woman as being wife material, I think his work was far more important to him. Although, there was mention of the one time in his youth when had feelings for a young woman only to discover her heart lay elsewhere. I think that although he did admire the Countess Vera Rossakoff for her immense strength of character, it's as well nothing further came of that relationship as she would have eaten him up and spat him out for breakfast!!!
"It is the misfortune of small, precise men always to hanker after large
and flamboyant women. Poirot had never been able to rid himself of the
fatal fascination that the Countess held for him." The Capture of Cerebus.
I think he's just asexual, and I think AC deliberately wrote Poirot like that in the books because she didn't want sex and personal relationships to get in the way of the storyline.
Imagine how difficult it would be, and how quickly it would become boring to the reader, if Poirot had to stop and consider a Madame Poirot (or even a mistress) before dashing off 'a toute vitesse' with Cpt Hastings to solve yet another murder......... "Put the dinner in the oven, my dear. I shall be back when I have solved this little matter in Egypt".
He would have been divorced by the third book! Mind you, being a devout Catholic he couldn't do that so maybe he would have ended up murdering Mrs Poirot )
@glalonzo0408 Oh, no, Poirot isn't gay, he once fell in love with the Russian countess Vera :-) . I think he is a typical bachelor: he likes having his own place, his own things and is also brilliant in his work! Marriage would cramp his style.
That is an Obsurd suggestion, If yo are suggesting because he sis a single man he must be gay, there are a lot of Single men who are not in a Loving relationship with a woman, are you suggesting they all are? If so you are mad (To Be Polite)
That is an Obsurd suggestion, If yo are suggesting because he sis a single man he must be gay, there are a lot of Single men who are not in a Loving relationship with a woman, are you suggesting they all are? If so you are mad (To Be Polite)
No I wasn't suggesting it because he was/is single....I just thought it might be a possibility and wanted to know what everyone else thought......no need to get your knickers in a bunch....i am sorry if i offended you in any way......it was just a question....
I just hate it when someone tries to bring today's standards and thinking into a place where it doesn't need to be, Is Holmes and Watson Gay? Is Poirot Gay, what's next is Miss Silver a Nymphomaniac?
There has always been speculation over the exact nature of the relationship between Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. It's not just modern film & television adaptations that are picking up on that theme. I was never a huge Sherlock Holmes fan myself, but I do like the recent Jude Law/Robert Downey Jr films; good stories, good acting, good sets and some humour in the writing. These things seem to be lacking in lots of modern films. I have no idea how faithful to the books they are though.
I think it's perfectly feasible for there to be a very strong bond between the two of them after all their adventures together, but I would say perhaps it should be more of a "bromance" than a gay thing.
Given the time period suggesting Poirot is gay is pretty absurd. Gay minor characters not a problem, as long as they were portrayed as thugs, murderers and other undesirables. Dashiell Hammett included one such character in The Maltese Falcon published in 1930. Even if Christie had not made Poirot asexual (you get this impression from reading the stories and somewhere in her autobiography she might even mentioned she was against giving the detective a love interest) no publisher in the world would have published a novel with an openly gay detection. The detective was the hero who banished evil and restored law and order. Not some degenerate who should be locked away somewhere away from "normal" folks. It wasn't until the publication of George Baxt's A Queer Kind of Death in 1966, followed up by an even better series starting with Joseph Hansen's Fadeout in 1970 that an openly gay detective would take center stage. One that is portrayed in a positive light as opposed to some weak effeminate stereotype.
This holds true for Conan Doyle. I doubt he would have consciously made Holmes oe Watson homosexual. However, on a subconscious level? Heaven only knows since the Victorian were so sexually repressed anything is possible. Gyles Brandreth writes an excellent mystery series that features Oscar Wilde (a friend of Conan Doyle) and Conan Doyle. Now this is fiction so I don't know how much (if anything) is based on actual facts besides the fact Wilde and Doyle were friends. Nonetheless the interaction between them is quite interesting as are the mysteries themselves.
Tommy, as far as standards are concerned. I don't think they had any back in the day given how they treated homosexuals. The fear and hatred of homosexuals was backed up by the full authority of the state. I find the treatment both barbaric and uncivilized. And what they put poor Alan Turing through is truly criminal and reprehensible.
An interesting article from the Victoria & Albert Museums website. A little long, but scroll down to the section relating to Visible Homosexuality and I think you will find that the Victorians were nowhere near as sexually repressed as some people would have us believe. The attitude was more along the lines of knowing what went on but choosing not to particularly discuss it in public.
There has been far more oppression and persecution of gay men and women since the 1930's than in the Victorian era.
"As I've told you, I've got a very suspicious mind. My nephew Raymond
tells me in fun, of course, that I have a mind like a sink. He says that
most Victorians have. All I can say is that the Victorians knew a good
deal about human nature." Miss Marple.
Interesting article. The Anti-Materbation devise is hilarious, if not a little uncomfortable. It reminded me of a chastity belt for women. But for every man who was able to find an outlet for their sexual desires in the queer sub-culture of London, there were countless others who were trapped in marriages or who were single living out in the sticks where you did not have males brothels and private clubs that you found in London. And just as important London being a major city you had anonymity at a time when you could be put in jail as in the case with Oscar Wilde. Generally you don't have anonymity in a small community where every one knows your business. So there were still a great number of men and women too in Victorian times were probably were still pretty repressed, especially those living outside of London.
Clive Durham in Maurice by E.M. Forster (written during 1913-14, but not published till 1971 after his death)is a good example of a reprssed homosexual.Clearly he is physically attracted to and probably in love with the main character Maurice Hall. Yet fearing that if he did follow through on his natural feelings he might be arrested, imprisoned and disgraced becoming a social outcast. He ends up marrying a woman who he probably cares about, but who he is not in love or physically attracted to.
And yes at certain times the government did go out of its way to persecute homosexuals. The 1950s were especially at bad time for gays. Supposedly the actor Dirk Bogarde was so so afraid of blackmail that he did not pick up men. The police actually trained policeman on how to seduce gay men then in-trap them in public restrooms. Not only was this just plan silly, but irresponsible as well given the limited financial resources. The police need to use their limited time and money to fight crime where people can actually be hurt.
Though some of the stories of people crusading against homosexuality are quite funny. According to the writer Sydney Horler who was notoriously anti-gay, London was "rife" with homosexual behavior in 1932. He wanted Scotland Yard to do something about "the alarming increase of sex perversion". One time the poor fellow was walking down Wardour street in Soho and propositioned by three youths. He said there were "at least ten youths with painted faces and peculiarly cut clothes" hanging about. Not too mention there were "clergyman with rouged checks." Heavens that is a real shocker. Why get upset. All he had to say is no thank, I'm not interested in buying. Just like you do a Harrods or Fortnum and Masons. And why was he in an area frequented by homosexuals in the first play. I've always wonder if he was one of those who believe in "don't do as I do, do as I say." Of course nothing really changes. In 1982 the morality campaigner Mary Whitehouse (always good for a few laughs) went after the director Michael Bogdanov who was directing The Romans in Britain at the National at the time.There is a homosexual rape scene (a simulated one at that) in the play that she objected to. She lost, but the court case is hilarious. And of course
Comments
Well, Capt Hastings was very happily married to his wife Dulcie (whom he refers to often as Cinders or Cinderella) and whom he met in The Murder on the Links, long before Miss Lemon made an appearance in his and Poirot's life. And we know that Hastings has a penchant for auburn hair, so I certainly don't think he ever looked on Miss Lemon as anything more than Poirot's secretary. Even Poirot himself describes her as being 'unbelievably ugly'. The Miss Lemon of the ITV adaptations is portrayed as far more glamorous, and seems to be on a much more intimate level with Poirot & Hastings, than the Miss Lemon of the books ever was. I do think it odd that even though Hastings was happily married, he then spent so much time with Poirot leaving Dulcie to 'man the ranch' in the Argentine and bring up their four children! She obviously was a very understanding woman.
Poirot was never really interested in any woman as being wife material, I think his work was far more important to him. Although, there was mention of the one time in his youth when had feelings for a young woman only to discover her heart lay elsewhere. I think that although he did admire the Countess Vera Rossakoff for her immense strength of character, it's as well nothing further came of that relationship as she would have eaten him up and spat him out for breakfast!!!
"It is the misfortune of small, precise men always to hanker after large and flamboyant women. Poirot had never been able to rid himself of the fatal fascination that the Countess held for him." The Capture of Cerebus.
Imagine how difficult it would be, and how quickly it would become boring to the reader, if Poirot had to stop and consider a Madame Poirot (or even a mistress) before dashing off 'a toute vitesse' with Cpt Hastings to solve yet another murder......... "Put the dinner in the oven, my dear. I shall be back when I have solved this little matter in Egypt".
He would have been divorced by the third book! Mind you, being a devout Catholic he couldn't do that so maybe he would have ended up murdering Mrs Poirot
I think it's perfectly feasible for there to be a very strong bond between the two of them after all their adventures together, but I would say perhaps it should be more of a "bromance" than a gay thing.
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/s/sex-and-sexuality-19th-century/
There has been far more oppression and persecution of gay men and women since the 1930's than in the Victorian era.
"As I've told you, I've got a very suspicious mind. My nephew Raymond tells me in fun, of course, that I have a mind like a sink. He says that most Victorians have. All I can say is that the Victorians knew a good deal about human nature." Miss Marple.