THE MYTHOLOGY OF CRIME AND ITS FORMULAIC EMBODIMENT
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries crime was still primarily a religious and moral matter. An offense against the law was or God and given harsh and terrible punishment. Crime represented the considerable sympathy and complex attention to motive and social context. During the nineteenth century moral feeling about crime might be called an aesthetic approach to subject.
Two Major formulaic pattern in the literature of crime of 1920s and 1930s – gangster tragedy and had boiled detective tale-embodied significant shifts in both archetype and cultural mythology. These new formulas made protagonist out of lower-class figures characterized by crudeness, aggressive violence, and alienation from the respectable morality of society.
THE FORMULA OF CLASSICAL DETECTIVE STORY
The first archetypal form of detective story is pure mystery. Since world war II other formulas that include some element of mystery archetype, but are also stories of adventure or melodrama- the hard boiled detective story, the spy story, the police procedural tale, the gangster saga, and the Enforces caper- have become increasingly popular.
Pattern of The formula
The formula of classical detective story can be described as conventional way of defining and developing particular kinds of situations, actions, characters and relation between them, and type of setting.
Detective story writers largely based their work on Poe’s inventions.
1. Situation. The classical detective story begins with an unsolved crime and move towards the elucidation of its mystery. Two major type of crime on which much of detective literature bases itself: Murder, frequently with sexual or grotesque over tones and Crime associated with political intrigue.
2. Pattern of action. The detective story formula centers upon the detective’s investigation and solution of the crime. Exemplify six main phases of this pattern (a) introduction of the detective; (b) crime and clues; (c) investigation; (d) announcement and the solution; (e) explanation of the solution; (g) denouement.
3. Characters and relationship. The classical detective story required four main roles: (a) the victim; (b) the criminal; (c) the detective; (d) those threatened by the crime but incapable of solving it.
4. Setting. In devising the setting Poe set the pattern for the classical detective story take place in isolated settings clearly marked off from the rest of the world. The combination of the isolated place and the bustling world outside is repeated in classical detective story. The setting performs many functions: it furnishes a limited and controlled backdrop against which the clues and suspects so central to the story can be silhouetted. It also fosters that special kind of suspends. It symbolic representation relation between surface rationality and hidden depth of guilt.
Cultural background of the formula
Haycraft’s theory as detective story as an affirmation of democratic ideal of legal process does offer a relation to a specific historical period. The mythology crime that is embodied is general characteristic is the transformation of crime into a game or puzzle, the aestheticizing of crime. The special emphasizes in the classical detective formula on domestic crimes as opposed to political or social crimes.
THE ART OF THE CLASSICAL DETECTIVE STORY
Christy and Sayers exemplify two possibilities for art within the formula of the classical detective story: (1) combines a pure ingenuity of ratiocination and mystification with other narrative interests completely subordinated to their rule in structure. (2) Uses classical formula pattern to body forth a variety of other narrative interest, in this case a vision of justice and society embedded in an allegory of the mystery of divine providence.
The golden age of detection is the past. The most important influence of the classical detective story since World War II has been on the new “post modern novel”
THE HARD BOILED DETECTIVE STORY
One of the most important aspects of hard –boiled formula is the special role of the modern city as background. The pattern formula: solution to the detective quest for the discovery and accomplishment of justice, and intimidation and temptation hero passing across a series of potential suspects. It set out to investigate crime but he must go the solution to personal choice or action. Usually the end of the story is a confrontation between detective and criminal.
References;
Cawelti: Adventure, Mystery, and romance: Formula stories as art and popular culture
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries crime was still primarily a religious and moral matter. An offense against the law was or God and given harsh and terrible punishment. Crime represented the considerable sympathy and complex attention to motive and social context. During the nineteenth century moral feeling about crime might be called an aesthetic approach to subject.
Two Major formulaic pattern in the literature of crime of 1920s and 1930s – gangster tragedy and had boiled detective tale-embodied significant shifts in both archetype and cultural mythology. These new formulas made protagonist out of lower-class figures characterized by crudeness, aggressive violence, and alienation from the respectable morality of society.
THE FORMULA OF CLASSICAL DETECTIVE STORY
The first archetypal form of detective story is pure mystery. Since world war II other formulas that include some element of mystery archetype, but are also stories of adventure or melodrama- the hard boiled detective story, the spy story, the police procedural tale, the gangster saga, and the Enforces caper- have become increasingly popular.
Pattern of The formula
The formula of classical detective story can be described as conventional way of defining and developing particular kinds of situations, actions, characters and relation between them, and type of setting.
Detective story writers largely based their work on Poe’s inventions.
1. Situation. The classical detective story begins with an unsolved crime and move towards the elucidation of its mystery. Two major type of crime on which much of detective literature bases itself: Murder, frequently with sexual or grotesque over tones and Crime associated with political intrigue.
2. Pattern of action. The detective story formula centers upon the detective’s investigation and solution of the crime. Exemplify six main phases of this pattern (a) introduction of the detective; (b) crime and clues; (c) investigation; (d) announcement and the solution; (e) explanation of the solution; (g) denouement.
3. Characters and relationship. The classical detective story required four main roles: (a) the victim; (b) the criminal; (c) the detective; (d) those threatened by the crime but incapable of solving it.
4. Setting. In devising the setting Poe set the pattern for the classical detective story take place in isolated settings clearly marked off from the rest of the world. The combination of the isolated place and the bustling world outside is repeated in classical detective story. The setting performs many functions: it furnishes a limited and controlled backdrop against which the clues and suspects so central to the story can be silhouetted. It also fosters that special kind of suspends. It symbolic representation relation between surface rationality and hidden depth of guilt.
Cultural background of the formula
Haycraft’s theory as detective story as an affirmation of democratic ideal of legal process does offer a relation to a specific historical period. The mythology crime that is embodied is general characteristic is the transformation of crime into a game or puzzle, the aestheticizing of crime. The special emphasizes in the classical detective formula on domestic crimes as opposed to political or social crimes.
THE ART OF THE CLASSICAL DETECTIVE STORY
Christy and Sayers exemplify two possibilities for art within the formula of the classical detective story: (1) combines a pure ingenuity of ratiocination and mystification with other narrative interests completely subordinated to their rule in structure. (2) Uses classical formula pattern to body forth a variety of other narrative interest, in this case a vision of justice and society embedded in an allegory of the mystery of divine providence.
The golden age of detection is the past. The most important influence of the classical detective story since World War II has been on the new “post modern novel”
THE HARD BOILED DETECTIVE STORY
One of the most important aspects of hard –boiled formula is the special role of the modern city as background. The pattern formula: solution to the detective quest for the discovery and accomplishment of justice, and intimidation and temptation hero passing across a series of potential suspects. It set out to investigate crime but he must go the solution to personal choice or action. Usually the end of the story is a confrontation between detective and criminal.
References;
Cawelti: Adventure, Mystery, and romance: Formula stories as art and popular culture
