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Is Hercule Poirot autistic?

Martyn
1 month ago

Hello everyone!

I'm self-diagnosed, currently on the waiting list for NHS assessment and based in Cornwall.

I'm about to begin (September 2024) a PhD project called "Little Grey Cells: Detecting Autism in the Cosy Crime Genre" exploring the role of autistic characterisation in the cosy crime subgenre from 1920 - 2020. Alongside my research, I'm developing a Cornish crime novel featuring an autistic amateur detective. 

My research begins with Hercule Poirot, who many autistic and non-autistic readers "headcanon" as being autistic:

Is Hercule Poirot autistic? Here are seven clues that he might be (theconversation.com) 

There are a number of characters in Agatha Christie's books who are sometimes read as autistic, and there is even speculation about Christie herself. 

Does anyone have any suggestions of characters within crime fiction (specifically cosy or Golden Age, but not exclusively) who could be read as autistic? Explicitly autistic detectives are now quite commonplace in crime fiction, and my research will explore the context within which that has developed. I'm not just looking for autistic detectives it can supporting characters as well.

Any thoughts anyone has would be really welcome! 

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  • 1 month ago

    I don't think that a fictional character can be autistic/anything unless they are written/created as such, especially those created long before a diagnosis for 'high functioning'/Level 1/previously Aspergers' was a thing.

    So, I am really struggling with this.

  • 1 month ago in reply to Debbie

    I'm not so much looking at characters and saying "this character is autistic" or even passing judgement on the validity of doing that. It's impossible to  definitively diagnose fictional characters even if that were desirable, but readers do interact with historical characterisation in ways that are shaped by their current understanding of psychology, people, ideas etc. 

    I'm exploring what it is that leads contemporary readers to "headcanon" characters as such, and what is underpinning that judgement - the broadening/deepening of clinical and cultural knowledge of autism over the decades. 

    Crime fiction is a genre where explicitly autistic/neurodivergent characters are now increasingly represented, so I'm exploring the historical trends within crime fiction characterisation that supports that. It appears to be a genre that is well suited to autistic characterisation.

    Authors in the past as of now were drawing on character and personality types that they saw in the real world, so it's not unreasonable to assume that they encountered people who would today meet the criteria for an autism diagnosis. At the time that Christie was developing Poirot there was a great deal of research interest into what we would understand as neurodivergence.

  • 1 month ago in reply to Martyn
    Martyn said:
    Authors in the past as of now were drawing on character and personality types that they saw in the real world, so it's not unreasonable to assume that they encountered people who would today meet the criteria for an autism diagnosis. At the time that Christie was developing Poirot there was a great deal of research interest into what we would understand as neurodivergence.

    Thank you for the explanation.

    There is food for thought here for me, particularly with regard to the above para.

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  • 1 month ago in reply to Martyn
    Martyn said:
    Authors in the past as of now were drawing on character and personality types that they saw in the real world, so it's not unreasonable to assume that they encountered people who would today meet the criteria for an autism diagnosis. At the time that Christie was developing Poirot there was a great deal of research interest into what we would understand as neurodivergence.

    Thank you for the explanation.

    There is food for thought here for me, particularly with regard to the above para.

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