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Learning About Motives and Opportunities

© Janet Kay Blaylock

For this article I read "Motive v. Opportunity" by Agatha Christie. This story is found in "The Thirteen Problems" by Agatha Christie.

When I first saw this story, the title caught my attention. Motive and opportunity are two elements that detectives think about when they are solving a case. Detectives need to find out who was at the crime scene or nearby (opportunity) and who wanted to murder the person or commit the crime (motive). Once these two elements are resolved, then the case is solved.

When you are writing a mystery, you want to make sure that you have a few people who have motives and some who may have had the opportunity. People may have a motive but not the opportunity. Others may have the opportunity but not the motive.

Now, let's first look at motives.

Motives

A motive is the reason a person commits a crime; for example, a person might be greedy. If a person needs money, he/she will do anything he/she can to acquire it. They will rob a bank, commit burglary, murder, or some other means of obtaining the money.

Besides greed, there are other kinds of motives that people may have to commit crimes. People may be jealous, angry, have emotional resentments, been abused as a child, or have other motives for committing crimes.

Having the opportunity is the other element detectives look for in their investigation of a case.

Opportunity

Opportunity is being at the crime scene or nearby. However, if people are at the crime scene or nearby, they still may not have the motive. On the other hand, they may have the motive. More than one person can have a motive for commiting a crime such as murder, but only one person acts on their emotional hurts.

The detectives have to sort out the suspects, motives, and opportunities. Once they have narrowed the list down, then they will be able to solve the case.

Throughout the story, the detectives listed the suspects and who had the motive and the opportunity to commit the crime. Some of the suspects had the motive but not the opportunity. Other suspects had the opportunity but not the motive. They had to find the person who had the motive and the opportunity. When they found that suspect, they solved the case.

Mrs. Eurydice Spragg is one of their suspects who had the opportunity to take the envelope, but did she have the motive? Mr. Spragg, Eurdyce's husband, also had the opportunity, but what was his motive?