Later, they find his dead body on the beach and realize that he was just another victim. The other three guests conclude that the missing one must be the killer. The seventh couplet in the poem reads: “Four little Indian boys going out to sea a red herring swallowed one and then there were three.”Īt that point in the story, one of the four remaining guests goes missing. One by one, the ten guests begin to die in ways that match the deaths described in the poem. When they get to the island, they find a copy of the poem “Ten Little Indians,” which describes ten gruesome deaths. If you haven’t read these books, watch out-there are spoilers ahead! Red Herring Example in And Then There Were None by Agatha ChristieĪgatha Christie’s famous novel And Then There Were None (1939) follows ten people who are invited by an unknown host to stay at a remote island. Let’s look at some red herring examples in classic mystery novels. The best way to understand what red herrings are is to see them in action. It’s a way to divert attention from what really matters, and it’s considered to be a logical fallacy because it's ultimately irrelevant to the main issue at hand. In logic, a red herring is a fallacy of distraction: bringing up another point to redirect the argument. ![]() For example, an earring next to the body matches a suspect’s earrings, but it later turns out to be a common earring worn by several people.
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