Philip Lombard Representing Mankind’s Universal Strengths And Weaknesses

Unfortunately, there is no lack of cunning, heartless individuals in humanity. Philip Lombard from Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, is no exception. The unique traits of Philip Lombard represents mankind’s universal strengths and weaknesses from his paranoid and unaware sense, his at times calculating and conniving manner, and his eventual unavoidable mortality.

Lombard’s paranoid and unaware sense cause him to carry a suspicious revolver alongside him constantly, securing his safety. Despite this action, his thoughts were futile, only leading to others suggesting and questioning Lombard’s innocence as the killer in the group. On the other hand, Lombard’s unaware sense played a substantial role near the ending of the story. Lombard became unaware and underestimated Vera’s ability, as a woman to fend for herself. This led to the unfortunate mistaken death of Lombard in the book. Although Lombard was admonitory about Wargrave’s role in the book, and had even discussed the Vera. However, no one suspected Wargrave’s role as the murderer after he had supposedly died. Lombard’s weakness of his unawareness ignored the fact that Vera may be capable of physical fights, and letting his guard down on Vera for her to grab his revolver, which ultimately led to the downfall of the whole story.

Unawareness plays a prodigious role in our universal flaws. It allows us to build too much trust like Dr. Armstrong did with Wargrave, which is an example that any mishappening can originate from an abundance of diverse amounts of people. The state of being unaware is described as ignorance, where it is very common in our world. It forces people to disregard or simply ignore information which is a large weakness in our society. The trait of ignorance can completely disregard an individual’s room for growth and developing and furthermore, is a frightening weakness. This trait again is shown with Vera and Lombard when Vera attacks and kills him, thinking he is the murderer, when both parties are unfeasible to be killers, because of their presence with each other while two murders occured.

Lombards calculating and conniving manner were very present and eminent in the story. First of all, he shows no sign of sympathy towards the 21 soldiers he left behind, which builds distrust towards his character in the book. Many individuals in our population today have the habit to become calculating, or scheming which can be seen as a weakness or strength. The public may see this as a strength due to the intelligent or insensitive side in obtaining the trait of being calculating. Intelligence can lead to one becoming extremely successful, or a manipulating psychopath. Insensitivity can portray your personality and frame one’s image of you. As people would describe it, insensitivity proves to be inhumane, because humans show and express emotions. Second, once more, we bring up the topic of Lombard consistently carrying his revolver on him. Mr Blore was suspicious of his actions with the revolver surrounding multiple deaths by gunshot on the island, yet Lombard would ignore his arguments and continue with his revolver carefree. The trait of being conniving applies to Lombard in this situation because Blore had thought he was conspiring something harmful to the guests. A conniving human can be described as heartless or scheming, which would lead to distrust among people you surround yourself with.

Finally Lombard’s eventual unavoidable mortality would be the surrounding cause of the numerous number of risks he takes. Lombard begins the story as a daring man who has accepted his mortality and takes multiple risks such as, jumping immediately at Vera while she was pointing his revolver towards him ready to fire. Lombard was also strangely aggressive and untrustable with Vera which later led to the ruining of Wargrave’s task of his great plan. An unavoidable mortality, once it has been accepted by one, is seen as both a weakness and strength. The weakness of one’s unavoidable mortality is a factor of an individual taking risks, and a strength as one would see it would be to finish what they’ve always wanted to accomplish, similar to a warning. This is clearly shown by Wargrave’s desire to kill after he is told he was going to perish soon in his Manuscript, “I have mentioned that I underwent an operation. My interview I had with a doctor in Harley Street told me that another operation would be useless. My medical adviser wrapped up the information very prettily, but I am accustomed to getting at the truth of a statement. ” A brief summary of what Wargrave stated was that the cause of his plot to create a large scheme of events, was because he knew he was going to pass on soon.

In conclusion, Lombard is an intriguing character whose traits such as his paranoid and unaware sense, his at times calculating and conniving manner and his unavoidable mortality plays into a substantial part of the plot and correspond to the universal weaknesses and strengths. Lombard was always known as a daring individual and one that caused an abnormal amount of chaos yet security and whose actions led to an enormous downfall of the complete plot of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.