Crime Fiction

1
Crime Fiction

• Session Two Graham Greene, Brighton Rock

2
Agenda

• Summary of Session One
• Crime fiction
• Modernism
• Graham Greene and Brighton Rock

3
Crime fiction as narrative paradigm

• The literature of detection is paradigmatic of
  literary narrative itself (Marcus 2003 245), it
  forms the narrative of naratives (Brooks 1984
  25)

4
Crime fiction as narrative paradigm

• Crime fiction
• Inquest the present work of detection that we
  read about in order to learn about the past story
  of the
• Crime

• Narrative
• Sjuzet, plot, discourse the telling / reading
• Fabula, story the told

5
Narrative
Story
Present
Discourse
Past
6
Peter Brooks, Reading for the Plot (1984)

• The anticipation of retrospection
• The desire to know epistemophilia
• The desire for the end (of desire)

7
Objects of inquests and reading

• The cardboard box and The Cardboard Box
• The Musgrave ritual and The Musgrave Ritual
• The mark on the wall and The Mark on the Wall

8
Virginia Woolf, The Mark on the Wall
A crack in The wood? Speculation, Association, Str
eam of consciousness
Made by a Nail? Speculation, Association, Stream
of consciousness
A rose Leaf? Speculation, Association, Stream
of consciousness
a snail!
The mark ???
9
Graham Greene, Brighton Rock

• What strikes you as odd and distinctive about
  this novel?
• Characters?
• Plot?
• Point of view?
• Imagery?
• Setting?

10
Hale

• Kolley Kibber
• Object of detection
• - subjectivity, freedom
• The Messenger

• Fred/ Charles
• Object of detection / inquest
• - subjectivity, freedom / dead body
• The gang war / Ida Arnold

11
I 1 Hale
2 (20) The Boy
3 (28) Ida Arnold
II 1 (47) The Boy
2 (63) The Boy
III 1 (73) Ida Arnold
2 (86) Spicer
3 (91) The Boy
4 (103) The Boy
IV 1 (107) ??? The Boy The Races
2 (129) Ida Arnold
3 (132) The Boy Spicer dead
12
Graham Greene, Brighton Rock

• Criminals The Boy, Spicer, Dallow, Hale,
  Colleoni, etc.
• Crime Protection money, blackmail, murder (Hale,
  Spicer), gang war.
• Detective Ida Arnold
• Crime and criminals?
• Detective the reader, the newspaper readers.