Genre

Crime fiction is very complex. When we speak about genre we have two characteristic genres in crime fiction. One of
them is called the typology of crime fiction, which has to do with the structuralist approach to crime fiction. It has to
do with particular grids, either a genre fits into a particular category or it doesn’t. Those categories may be:

 The hard-boiled
 Whodunit
 Locked room mystery
 Thriller
 Suspense

It is called structuralist because it is prescriptive and descriptive. The typology is based on what is typical. E.g. in the
whodunit the detective cannot be the murderer which is called the immunity of the detective. The rules of the genre
is like a recipe as how it should be written.

The other approach is the historicist or the historical diachronic approach i.e. the context of production. We study
this context synchronically which means that we study it as it is in the moment it is written. The diachronic study has
to do with how the work is interpreted, modified, transmuted and how it develops across the ages to suit more
contemporary dates.

“If in the final exam I ask for a diachronic historical or contextual interpretation of crime fiction I’m asking you to
compare a study in scarlet with a study in pink which is the contemporary version of Sherlock Holmes. If I ask you in
the final exam analyse Sherlock diachronically you must find something that is different but it must have a purpose, it
must make sense. In the case of Sherlock we can see the use of technology. We can get into the mind of the
detective.”

The context of production can be synchronic i.e. when the work was created. The context of reception has to do with
the diachronic study of the work.

Within the context of production we undergo a diachronic change and the reason is that in a study in pink what they
do is to rewrite and recreate a study in scarlet. It is a very typical postmodern rewriting which is pay homage. It is the
same work but at the same time it is a very different work. The reason why we can compare is because the same
work has undergone historical changes. It is a remake but an unfaithful one. The series uses montage (see below)
which is a modern technique, something that was unthinkable in the Victorian era.

There are three traditions in crime fiction:

 the American: crime fiction started with Poe's tales of ratiocination (It is a tale in wich reason is applyed to
the deductive process) such as "The mystery of Marie Roget" and "The murders in the Rue Morgue", in
which the detective is Dupin.
 the British: Agatha Christie's Poirot and Arthur Conan Doyle's Miss Marple.
 the French: Gaboriau's Monsier Lecoq and Leblanc's Lupin.

Subgenres
The hard-boiled: originated in America and incorporated the idea of the brutal crime in which the private eye who
works on the margin of the police becomes the moral centre of the story, as everyone else is corrupted. The point of
these stories is to get to know how a network works, and it involves violence, sex and betrayal. This is the opposite
of "a Study in Scarlet", in which Sherlock is never at risk. He is a witness and only has to discover who did it, they'll
never become involved in the murder or in the world of the criminal.

Whodunit: the story finishes answering the question of who did it. The whole story follows a retrograde analysis,
because it has 2 stories. Story number 1is the real story, that is the story of the murder, of what happened. This story
works in absentia, it is absent, it is not told. The second story is the story of the investigation, of the detection of the
crime, the story that is present. The story begins with the corpse and number 2 moves forward, so what we are
reading in the 1t part of "a Study in Scarlet" is the story of the investigation. What came before is story number 1, of
the murder, what led to the corpse. We are not told the story chronologically. At the end of story 2, the detective
explains story number 1. He does NOT narrate it, he just explains it according to science, to cause and effect. It is not
narrated but reconstructed, when he assembles the pieces together of a puzzle. The story is told backwards, that's
why it is called retrograde analysis: from the traces to the actions or from the consequences to the cause. We have a
"Now" and what happened in the past, so we have two temporal dimensions. Frankenstein has 2 temporalities
(because Victor is retelling his story) but the whole story is NARRATED as a flashback. That is the difference with
crime, because in CF the 1st story is in absentia, is never narrated. The mystery in the whodunnit has to be puzzling
and perplexing. The How is the most important question of the whodunnit because of the genius detective.

Locked room mystery: A kind of fiction in which the crime has been committed in a room which seems to be
hermetically sealed. MRM is the typical room-locked kind of mystery. It has the figures of the detective and the
helper.

Thriller: suppresses the first story and vitalizes the second. The narrative coincides with the action. We are not told
of a crime committed previously. Prospection takes the place of retrospection as the immunity of the detective is
lost and we don't know if we will reach the end of the story alive. There is no mystery but curiosity and suspense.
The private eye is concerned with violent kind of crime . He's always discovering nets of corruption, gangster. He is
not immune by involving in those things. The Private Eye is the main character. We don't have a "watson". He is a
"lone ranger" (the idea of the western, but applied in the city)

Suspense: it keeps the mystery of the 2 stories but it refuses to reduce the second to a simple detection of the truth.
This story, as in the thriller, occupies the central place. The reader is not only interested in what happened but also
in what will happen next. 2 kinds:

o the story of the vulnerable detective: the detective gets beaten up or badly hurt, losing his
immunity
o the story of the suspect-as-detective: the detective is a suspect and in order to prove his innocence,
he must solve the mystery.

Detective fiction: a type of crime fiction centred on the investigation of a crime and that focuses attention on the
detective's method to solve a crime that seems impossible to solve.

The police procedural: a type of crime fiction which foregrounds the actual method and procedures of police work in
the investigation of crime. It usually features a team of police officers, often pursuing a number of cases at the same
time; and the procedures of modern police work including forensic technology, the interviewing of suspects and
record searches are emphasized.

Setting
The modern city is generally recognized as the normal setting for hard-boiled fiction, while Golden-Age fiction
generally takes place in a rural or semi-rural setting. The earlier fiction of Doyle features both.

Context
There are 3 elements in the context of production that led to the creation of crime fiction:

 The Victorian era

 The creation of police: the Bobbies or Peelers in London with Sir Robert Peel, Eugene Vidoq's in France with
La Surité, and the Pinkerton agency in America.
 The forensic science which is essential for detective fiction and which was a product of the Enlightenment

At the beginning of the 19th century there was a rise in crime as a product of the industrial revolution, which also
precipitated the rise of capitalism and the consequent emergence of large-scale unemployment. Moreover, the
distribution of population shifted from rural areas to large and poorly constructed urban areas. In England, soldiers
were called to uphold the law, but in 1749, in response to increasing demand, the Metropolitan police was created
by Sir Robert Peel. Modern police work, as it developed in the 19th century, was founded on the faith in knowledge,
science and reason that characterized the Enlightenment. The invention of photography in 1839 allowed the
recording of photographic evidence. Fingerprint identification was introduced, as well as the Bertillon system of
criminal investigation, which was based on the classification of skeletal and other bodily measurements.
Characteristics of crime fiction
features of CF: not all CF need to have ALL the features. CF is a multilayer.

There has to be a mystery, the central concern in the work. It doesn't have to be a crime but for instance, how a
network works and who is involved. All detective fiction is centered on a murder, being the crime the excuse for the
second story, what triggers it. The narrative superimposes two temporal series. The characters of the second story
do not act, there is no action, there is only a learning of the method, of the murderer and the motivation of the
crime by means of deduction (the How, the Who, and the Why).

 The criminal is always identifyed

 immunity of the detective
 the detective has analitical powers beyond the human capacity, he is a genius who has a sharp intellect
 We have a clue or a lead which is a remnant we have in the present. Something material: a footprint, a
corpse, etc. We go from fragments (a synechdoque) to the totality (the whole).

In Macbeth and Frankenstein there is also crime, but it has nothing to do with the metropolitan police, the detective,
or CF. Crime is NOT THE MAIN interest. There are other themes with stronger focus.

 There is an emphasis on right conduct, as crime is identified as a transgression of socially imposed boundaries.
 crime fiction stories are cautionary tales in which the perpetrator of a criminal deed is captured, tried, and
punished. The execution of the villain was an integral part of the popular accounts of the 18th century. The
warnings of these stories were a way of maintaining social order and personal security under threat from rising
crime rates. The ideology is clear, crime will always be punished.
 The idea of fair play is grounded in the notion that the reader should be able to solve the crime, and for this
reason should have access to the same information as the fictional detective.
 The plot is elevated above all other considerations, and the realistic character development takes a back seat to
the construction of the puzzle.
 In order to solve the mystery, a process of retrograde analysis is performed.
 There is an ideological motivation to return to a previous period characterized by stability and order to preserve
the upper-middle class status quo.
 The police force serves as a foil to the brilliant detective as an individual.
 there is a chain of causation in which the final solution of an apparently unsolvable mystery depends on the
"primacy of plot" and the narrative importance of cause and effect.
 A third key feature is that the criminal is always identifiable as “other”than themselves. There must be an
identification of the other through transgression of society. The identification of crime as a transgression of
socially imposed boundaries has a dual purpose. In addition to identifying those who lie beyond the pale by
marking them in some way.

Elizabethan revenge tragedies vs. crime fiction: stages

 exposition: of events leading up to the situation requiring vengeance, or investigation

 anticipation: as the revenger plains the revenge and the detective investigates the crime.
 confrontation: between revenger and victim, followed by the partial execution of the plan, or, the villain's
temporary thwarting of the investigation.
 The final part is the completion of the act of vengeance, or, the detective's final success in bringing the villain to
justice.

Crime fiction vs. Gothic fiction

Gothic plots employ delayed revelations o create a "double rhythm", moving forward in time while creeping slowly
backward to resolve the disruptions and violence evident in the present. Also, the Gothic landscape such as the
mountains and the castle, with its secrets and hidden passageways can be compared to the city in Crime fiction,
which is dark, threatening and devastated by violence, pollution and garbage.
“If I ask you in the final exam what these to genres have in common, horror fiction and crime fiction, it is that both of
them engender in the reader the hope or dream that in the end justice is served and order is restored.”

“What’s the difference? It is that horror appeals to our instinct, the fears we repress. In the case of Frankenstein
order is restored intrinsically, the police do not intervene. They never knew that Victor created the monster, society
does not know about it. In the case of detective stories it is the opposite. The restoration of order is public. Order is
restored in two ways. First through the method of detection which takes us to back to the idea that all crime leaves a
trace. Detective fiction is based on the assumption that all crime leaves a trace which is empirical, for example a
fingertip, a smell, a message, something that is out of place and the detective detects that trace. The second aspect is
the idea of punishment .This is shared in both kinds of fictions. In the case of gothic genre we have self-served justice.
Victor takes justice in his own hands. In the case of the detective he is not involved. He discovers the criminal but he
does not serve justice, society does. The criminal is served justice by the state ”

The detective

The detective has characteristics of reclusiveness, eccentricity, and penetrating analytic ability. He is a genius
depicted as a reasoning and observing machine, and who is often accompanied by a friend or colleague who, in
addition to being the foil for the detective's genius, is also the narrator of the story. "The Watson" becomes the eyes
and ears of the reader, providing them with all the clues necessary to solve the mystery. The detective's method is a
scientific approach rooted in Victorian faith in the accumulation and cataloguing of data, and rational and logical
analysis based on its scientific foundation, known as "deductive reasoning". The Watson also personifies the positive
qualities of Victorian middle class men, he is honest, loyal, and brave.

Dupin and Holmes share some characteristics: both are reclusive, and both have a private income for them to live in
reasonable comfort without having to rely on their detective skills to support themselves. They are amateur
detectives that practice their profession more as a hobby than as a means of making a living.

Language
Language moves from the synechdoque to the whole, and there is going to be a lot of meronimy. There is also to be
LOGIC, expressed by linking words indicating reason, cause and effect. Logic and speculation or deduction through
the use of MODAL VERBS (ex: "it must have rained because of the horses footprints").

2 main central narratological devices (EXAM QUESTION)

point of view (limited, and has to be of the Watson in detective fiction because he is the reader, who knows nothing
until he is told by the genius detective) and chronology (the manipulation of time). We CAN'T have an omniscient
narrator.

In BBC's Sherlock there is a combination of all genres. (typical of the Postmodernity: pastiche, our own context of
production). conclusion: there is no definite taxonomy. First works of the genre: tales of ratiocination (term given to
Poe). It is a tale in wich reason is applied to the deductive process.