The document discusses the characteristics of protagonists in detective fiction. It notes that early protagonists were often detectives, but later expanded to include other occupations like policemen or reporters. Regardless of occupation, protagonists typically embark on a journey of discovery to solve a mystery or recover something lost, facing dangers and challenges along the way requiring special skills or knowledge. This follows the archetype of heroes in classic mythology. The document then focuses on how hard-boiled protagonists, emerging in the early 20th century US, took on a more populist and pragmatic tone reflective of American frontier culture, speaking in plain language and displaying physical toughness.
The Silver Lining - Moral Deliberations in FilmsSam Vaknin
The document is a collection of essays analyzing various films that explore moral dilemmas and philosophical questions. The first essay summarizes the film "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and analyzes the psychopathic characters of Tom Ripley and Dickie Greenleaf. The second essay provides an in-depth analysis of the film "The Truman Show" and its examination of reality, manipulation, and free will. The document contains essays on several other films and their depictions of ethical issues.
How far has research impacted on our trailerRachel Pedder
The document discusses research on representations of gender in horror films and the narrative structure of the group's trailer idea. It examines theories by Laura Mulvey, Carol Clover, and Jeremy Tunstall on representations of women. The narrative draws on theories by Tzetan Todorov, Vladimir Propp, and Levi Strauss. The background story is provided for the character of Miss Anderson in 1938 and the events that led to the deaths of children in a church fire. The genre of supernatural/paranormal horror is discussed along with conventions seen in trailers. Consideration is given to audiences and institutions in promoting the film through advertising stars, teasers, and generating hype.
This document provides a summary and analysis of the slasher film genre, with a focus on gender and queer identities. It discusses how slasher films blur gender boundaries through characters like the killer and the "Final Girl" survivor. While often seen as misogynistic for depicting violence against women, the films also allow for identification with queer and gender non-conforming characters. The postmodern slasher film Scream further engages spectators through self-aware references to horror film tropes and conventions. By breaking expectations, Scream aims to produce a more active, critically engaged spectatorship.
The document discusses common character archetypes found in film noir, horror, and thriller genres. It provides descriptions of several famous villainous characters including Michael Myers from Halloween, Jigsaw from Saw, Freddy Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street, Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th, Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs, Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Chucky from Child's Play. These characters are often psychopathic killers who terrorize victims using weapons like knives, guns, and chainsaws.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups? - Finalghall5nrv
The document discusses how the media product portrays different social groups through the dress and characteristics of the murderer and victim.
For the murderer, he is dressed in business-like clothes implying he is of a higher social class, reflecting the profile of Jack the Ripper who he is based on. This portrays the victim as an adult and plays into stereotypes of men being stronger and more violent.
The victim wears generic running clothes, not revealing much about her background or status. Female victims are often portrayed as weak, vulnerable targets for male serial killers, reflecting real cases like Jack the Ripper and Ed Gein that only targeted women.
While the murderer's gender and strength fit common stereotypes for serial
- The document discusses five sub-genres of horror: supernatural, psychological, slasher, possession, and gothic.
- Supernatural horror features paranormal events occurring in everyday locations that protagonists cannot escape or fight. Psychological horror manipulates the audience's mind through disturbed antagonists rather than gore.
- Slasher films usually include a "final girl" survivor and involve teenage victims of a masked, physically imposing killer.
- Possession films depict abnormal behavior through possessed objects or people, using religious imagery and settings with dark histories.
- Gothic horror draws on mythical creatures in isolated settings of the past, employing shadows and lighting for effect. The author chooses possession
Reference: Pablo Echart and Alberto N. García. Paper presented at "Apocalypse. Imagining the End" Conference, Oxford University, July 2013.
Abstract: "Although Breaking Bad (AMC, 2008-2013) is one of the most critically acclaimed TV Series of the last decade, it has been the subject of little academic research. This paper aims to figure out the motivations fueling Walter White’s behavior, one of the most compelling characters in contemporary popular culture.
The discovery of Walter White’s cancer serves as a catalyst (a particularly appropriate chemical term) for him to unveil his true ‘inner self’. The serious nature of his disease, the associated medical costs, and his feeling of failure as both a father/husband and in the professional sphere, are established as the driving force behind his infamous behavior from the very start of the series. However, beyond the strategies that underlie the initial sympathy that every viewer feels for this ‘ordinary American guy’, Breaking Bad divulges other keys that allow us to understand the transformation from ‘Mr Chips into Scarface’, following the premise described by Breaking Bad’s creator, Vince Gilligan.
As we will explore, the progressive moral and criminal decline of Walter White is spurred on by the contradictory tension between two radical emotions that become ‘rationalized’ in order to justify his actions, which become increasingly less defensible: an increasing pride, and the guilt that fades as the narrative unfolds. In summary, we will analyze the moral and narrative mechanisms that hasten Walter White’s self-destruction once he became aware that he was facing the end of his own life."
This document discusses Shakespearean villains and their parallels in modern pop culture villains. It analyzes the motivations and social disruption caused by Shakespearean villains like Iago from Othello, Richard III, and Don John. Iago seeks to disrupt social ideals around loyalty, authority and chastity through his manipulation. Richard III feels compelled to cause chaos due to his physical deformities. The document then discusses how villains like The Joker from The Dark Knight are similarly motivated to disrupt social order and question morality. It argues villains inspire audiences to examine their own values and beliefs.
The Silver Lining - Moral Deliberations in FilmsSam Vaknin
The document is a collection of essays analyzing various films that explore moral dilemmas and philosophical questions. The first essay summarizes the film "The Talented Mr. Ripley" and analyzes the psychopathic characters of Tom Ripley and Dickie Greenleaf. The second essay provides an in-depth analysis of the film "The Truman Show" and its examination of reality, manipulation, and free will. The document contains essays on several other films and their depictions of ethical issues.
How far has research impacted on our trailerRachel Pedder
The document discusses research on representations of gender in horror films and the narrative structure of the group's trailer idea. It examines theories by Laura Mulvey, Carol Clover, and Jeremy Tunstall on representations of women. The narrative draws on theories by Tzetan Todorov, Vladimir Propp, and Levi Strauss. The background story is provided for the character of Miss Anderson in 1938 and the events that led to the deaths of children in a church fire. The genre of supernatural/paranormal horror is discussed along with conventions seen in trailers. Consideration is given to audiences and institutions in promoting the film through advertising stars, teasers, and generating hype.
This document provides a summary and analysis of the slasher film genre, with a focus on gender and queer identities. It discusses how slasher films blur gender boundaries through characters like the killer and the "Final Girl" survivor. While often seen as misogynistic for depicting violence against women, the films also allow for identification with queer and gender non-conforming characters. The postmodern slasher film Scream further engages spectators through self-aware references to horror film tropes and conventions. By breaking expectations, Scream aims to produce a more active, critically engaged spectatorship.
The document discusses common character archetypes found in film noir, horror, and thriller genres. It provides descriptions of several famous villainous characters including Michael Myers from Halloween, Jigsaw from Saw, Freddy Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street, Jason Voorhees from Friday the 13th, Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs, Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Chucky from Child's Play. These characters are often psychopathic killers who terrorize victims using weapons like knives, guns, and chainsaws.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups? - Finalghall5nrv
The document discusses how the media product portrays different social groups through the dress and characteristics of the murderer and victim.
For the murderer, he is dressed in business-like clothes implying he is of a higher social class, reflecting the profile of Jack the Ripper who he is based on. This portrays the victim as an adult and plays into stereotypes of men being stronger and more violent.
The victim wears generic running clothes, not revealing much about her background or status. Female victims are often portrayed as weak, vulnerable targets for male serial killers, reflecting real cases like Jack the Ripper and Ed Gein that only targeted women.
While the murderer's gender and strength fit common stereotypes for serial
- The document discusses five sub-genres of horror: supernatural, psychological, slasher, possession, and gothic.
- Supernatural horror features paranormal events occurring in everyday locations that protagonists cannot escape or fight. Psychological horror manipulates the audience's mind through disturbed antagonists rather than gore.
- Slasher films usually include a "final girl" survivor and involve teenage victims of a masked, physically imposing killer.
- Possession films depict abnormal behavior through possessed objects or people, using religious imagery and settings with dark histories.
- Gothic horror draws on mythical creatures in isolated settings of the past, employing shadows and lighting for effect. The author chooses possession
Reference: Pablo Echart and Alberto N. García. Paper presented at "Apocalypse. Imagining the End" Conference, Oxford University, July 2013.
Abstract: "Although Breaking Bad (AMC, 2008-2013) is one of the most critically acclaimed TV Series of the last decade, it has been the subject of little academic research. This paper aims to figure out the motivations fueling Walter White’s behavior, one of the most compelling characters in contemporary popular culture.
The discovery of Walter White’s cancer serves as a catalyst (a particularly appropriate chemical term) for him to unveil his true ‘inner self’. The serious nature of his disease, the associated medical costs, and his feeling of failure as both a father/husband and in the professional sphere, are established as the driving force behind his infamous behavior from the very start of the series. However, beyond the strategies that underlie the initial sympathy that every viewer feels for this ‘ordinary American guy’, Breaking Bad divulges other keys that allow us to understand the transformation from ‘Mr Chips into Scarface’, following the premise described by Breaking Bad’s creator, Vince Gilligan.
As we will explore, the progressive moral and criminal decline of Walter White is spurred on by the contradictory tension between two radical emotions that become ‘rationalized’ in order to justify his actions, which become increasingly less defensible: an increasing pride, and the guilt that fades as the narrative unfolds. In summary, we will analyze the moral and narrative mechanisms that hasten Walter White’s self-destruction once he became aware that he was facing the end of his own life."
This document discusses Shakespearean villains and their parallels in modern pop culture villains. It analyzes the motivations and social disruption caused by Shakespearean villains like Iago from Othello, Richard III, and Don John. Iago seeks to disrupt social ideals around loyalty, authority and chastity through his manipulation. Richard III feels compelled to cause chaos due to his physical deformities. The document then discusses how villains like The Joker from The Dark Knight are similarly motivated to disrupt social order and question morality. It argues villains inspire audiences to examine their own values and beliefs.
This document discusses the need to redefine masculinity away from patriarchal definitions that are harmful to both men and women. It argues that current notions of masculinity promote violence, emotional repression, and an unhealthy emphasis on sex and dominance. Statistics are presented showing the high rates of violence, abuse, and suicide among men, suggesting patriarchal masculinity is "killing our men." A new, feminist definition of manhood is called for that values empathy, emotional expression, and nonviolence over aggression and domination. The goal is to start a discussion about changing rigid, patriarchal gender norms and promoting healthier relationships and identities for both men and women.
1 b class 17 work on plan to include new film jordanlachance
This document provides an agenda for a class on trickster tales and characters. It includes discussion questions on works studied, an exam on terms, and an introduction to a research essay assignment. Students will analyze characters from readings to identify trickster traits and discuss Song from M. Butterfly as a possible trickster. The class will also define trickster archetypes and discuss their purpose in modern society. Homework involves further exploring primary texts and characters for the essay.
This document discusses how masculinity and men are represented in action genre films. It argues that action heroes are typically portrayed as hyper-masculine, physically fit, and able to command women, contrasting with research suggesting men also experience vulnerability. It analyzes how such portrayals reinforce dominant societal ideologies around gender, sexuality, race and nationalism.
This document discusses the portrayal of female empowerment on television through characters like Buffy Summers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It explores how Buffy and other female characters both embrace and subvert traditional notions of femininity by being physically powerful while also embracing traditionally feminine attributes. The document also discusses earlier television shows featuring empowered female leads like Cagney and Lacey and how they both reflected and advanced feminist ideals of their time by showing women as competent professionals rather than just sexual objects.
The document discusses how the author's thriller represents certain social groups through its characters and plot. The main characters, a married couple named Jack and Lilly, conform to stereotypical gender roles - Jack is portrayed as dominant and secretive, hiding his real job as a hitman, while Lilly is innocent and naive, unaware of her husband's double life. These decisions were meant to give the audience what they wanted based on surveys. The thriller also suggests that older people are more likely victims, and that the villain will be a younger man portrayed in a dangerous light.
The Crazies is a 2010 remake of the 1973 film of the same name. It follows the sheriff of Ogden Marsh, Iowa and his pregnant wife as they try to escape the town when its water supply infects residents with a disease that turns them violent. While the film challenges some classic narrative and character theories, it still presents a coherent story with discernible heroes and villains that keeps audiences engaged. It uses time in novel ways, with the plot spanning 3 days but the story 3 weeks. Gender roles are also subverted somewhat, with the wife playing a strong survival role atypical of classic theories. Overall the film offers a fresh perspective while maintaining narrative success.
Application of learning theory to serial murderNyi Maw
This document discusses the application of learning theory to explain serial murder. It argues that serial killers are not inherently deranged, but rather their murders are a learned response to humiliation experienced earlier in life. The killer internalizes cues associated with the humiliation and transfers their suppressed aggression onto victims as a way to regain power and control. Learning theories like frustration-aggression help explain why serial killers displace their anger onto surrogate victims rather than confronting the original source of their humiliation directly. Understanding serial murder through this psychological and learning perspective provides insights that were previously overlooked in research focusing only on external characteristics and behaviors.
Top 10 Horror Thriller Movies to Watch in 2013 HalloweenChen Stephen
The document provides a list and descriptions of the top 10 horror thriller movies to watch for Halloween in 2013. World War Z about a zombie pandemic is ranked number one. The Conjuring, a true story about paranormal investigators battling a dark presence in a farmhouse, is number two. Evil Dead about demons possessing friends in a remote cabin is number three. Mama about two girls taken in by an unknown entity is number four. A reimagining of Carrie is number five. The Purge about a night where all crime is legal is number six. Stoker about a mysterious uncle and his niece is number seven. Texas Chainsaw 3D in 3D is number eight. Warm Bodies, a romantic comedy
The document discusses the history and evolution of representation of women in comic books from the early 20th century to present day. It notes that early pulp fictions and comics often portrayed women as weak, helpless characters in need of rescue or as sexual objects. While some progress has been made with more prominent female characters, modern comics still tend to marginalize or objectify women through unrealistic body portrayals and an emphasis on sexuality and femininity over strength. The document suggests comic creators work to avoid objectification and provide more realistic and diverse portrayals of female characters.
Craig Collins was a rising journalist who left journalism for a successful career in business. However, he never lost his passion for writing. His first book, Thunder in the Mountains, is a work of literary nonfiction that provides a portrait of American gun culture through personal stories of growing up in rural areas surrounded by guns. The book explores the duality of guns representing both glory and a darker reality through its examination of Collins' experience accidentally shooting himself as a boy. With this debut, Collins has crafted a commanding and caring voice on a complex issue.
This document discusses various subgenres of horror films and their common conventions. It describes slasher films, psychological horror, supernatural horror, possession films, gothic horror, sci-fi horror, and comedy horror. For each subgenre, it provides examples of well-known films that fall into that category and lists some typical elements like settings, characters, themes, and plot devices commonly seen in those types of horror movies.
The document discusses different approaches to representing reality in media, including psychological realism, naturalism, and documentary conventions. Psychological realism aims to portray individual experiences as universal, but often reflects the views of privileged groups. Naturalism focuses on depicting typical social experiences rather than claiming psychological universality. Documentaries rely on images, testimony, and documentation to substantiate their representations of reality, but any curation of evidence inherently makes an argument. The lines between different genres are blurred, and all representations of reality carry ideological assumptions.
1) Spiderman's love interest Mary Jane is initially freaked out when she discovers Peter is actually Spiderman.
2) During a fight with the Green Goblin, tension builds between Peter and his friend Harry.
3) In the end, Spiderman saves Mary Jane's life, and she falls back in love with him upon learning his secret identity.
This document discusses film genres, specifically focusing on the genre of romantic comedy. It provides information on genre conventions and how genres evolve over time. For romantic comedies, it identifies several cycles or eras of the genre, including screwball comedies, sex comedies, radical romantic comedies, and neo-traditional romantic comedies. It also discusses how genres can reflect and shape cultural values and explores how directors can assert their own vision while working within genre conventions, using Stanley Kubrick's The Shining as an example.
The document provides background on an unnamed artist who struggled to gain admission to art school but was rejected twice. He then served in World War I before taking a job as a political speaker. It is later revealed that the artist was Adolf Hitler, though he is not famous for his art. The document then discusses various art history topics like symbolism, representation, and interpretation in images.
The document discusses how antagonists in literature are often associated with sex and exploiting others. It notes that vampires feed on humans and represent corrupt older values that prey on innocent youth. Vampires continue their existence by stealing the life force of those who matter less to them. The document suggests Wall Street traders act in a similar exploitative way. As long as people exploit each other selfishly, vampires will remain a relevant metaphor. It lists several literary works that feature antagonists who represent these exploitative traits, including Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and A Christmas Carol.
The document discusses how antagonists in literature are often associated with sex and exploiting others. It notes that vampires feed on humans and represent corrupt older values that prey on innocent youth. Vampires drain the life force from their victims to continue their own undead existence, much like how some view Wall Street traders as exploiting others for selfish gain. As long as people act this way towards each other, the concept of the vampire will remain relevant.
This document provides an agenda and materials for an English writing class. The agenda includes discussing the film "M Butterfly" and introducing an essay assignment on trickster tales. Students will evaluate the character of Song from "M Butterfly" as a potential trickster. The document also includes exam terms, discussion questions on "M Butterfly", and an introduction to the research paper topic on how trickster tales reveal aspects of human nature. Homework includes catching up on reading and posting an in-class writing response.
Here you have a teaching unit with the topic 'Natural Disasters'. You will also find a grammar section focused on the 'present perfect' and a different part devoted to the phonetics. Hope you enjoy it!
Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction where an investigator or detective investigates a crime, often murder. Edgar Allan Poe is considered the creator of detective fiction with his character C. Auguste Dupin. Wilkie Collins' novel The Moonstone established many elements that became essential in detective novels. Arthur Conan Doyle popularized the genre with his character Sherlock Holmes. Between the two world wars was the "Golden Age" of detective fiction, featuring authors like Agatha Christie, who created Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Hardboiled fiction emerged in the 1920s-30s US, exemplified by Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade and Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe.
Natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, floods, and tornadoes can have significant environmental, economic, and human impacts. They often permanently alter the local landscape and can lead to the destruction of local species. Even minor storms can cause considerable economic damage through infrastructure destruction and business interruption. Beyond direct impacts, natural disasters also cause indirect effects like utility disruptions and emotional tolls like anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress. The loss of lives and homes creates further hardships for victims. Overall, natural disasters have wide-ranging consequences on environments, economies, and human well-being.
This document discusses the need to redefine masculinity away from patriarchal definitions that are harmful to both men and women. It argues that current notions of masculinity promote violence, emotional repression, and an unhealthy emphasis on sex and dominance. Statistics are presented showing the high rates of violence, abuse, and suicide among men, suggesting patriarchal masculinity is "killing our men." A new, feminist definition of manhood is called for that values empathy, emotional expression, and nonviolence over aggression and domination. The goal is to start a discussion about changing rigid, patriarchal gender norms and promoting healthier relationships and identities for both men and women.
1 b class 17 work on plan to include new film jordanlachance
This document provides an agenda for a class on trickster tales and characters. It includes discussion questions on works studied, an exam on terms, and an introduction to a research essay assignment. Students will analyze characters from readings to identify trickster traits and discuss Song from M. Butterfly as a possible trickster. The class will also define trickster archetypes and discuss their purpose in modern society. Homework involves further exploring primary texts and characters for the essay.
This document discusses how masculinity and men are represented in action genre films. It argues that action heroes are typically portrayed as hyper-masculine, physically fit, and able to command women, contrasting with research suggesting men also experience vulnerability. It analyzes how such portrayals reinforce dominant societal ideologies around gender, sexuality, race and nationalism.
This document discusses the portrayal of female empowerment on television through characters like Buffy Summers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It explores how Buffy and other female characters both embrace and subvert traditional notions of femininity by being physically powerful while also embracing traditionally feminine attributes. The document also discusses earlier television shows featuring empowered female leads like Cagney and Lacey and how they both reflected and advanced feminist ideals of their time by showing women as competent professionals rather than just sexual objects.
The document discusses how the author's thriller represents certain social groups through its characters and plot. The main characters, a married couple named Jack and Lilly, conform to stereotypical gender roles - Jack is portrayed as dominant and secretive, hiding his real job as a hitman, while Lilly is innocent and naive, unaware of her husband's double life. These decisions were meant to give the audience what they wanted based on surveys. The thriller also suggests that older people are more likely victims, and that the villain will be a younger man portrayed in a dangerous light.
The Crazies is a 2010 remake of the 1973 film of the same name. It follows the sheriff of Ogden Marsh, Iowa and his pregnant wife as they try to escape the town when its water supply infects residents with a disease that turns them violent. While the film challenges some classic narrative and character theories, it still presents a coherent story with discernible heroes and villains that keeps audiences engaged. It uses time in novel ways, with the plot spanning 3 days but the story 3 weeks. Gender roles are also subverted somewhat, with the wife playing a strong survival role atypical of classic theories. Overall the film offers a fresh perspective while maintaining narrative success.
Application of learning theory to serial murderNyi Maw
This document discusses the application of learning theory to explain serial murder. It argues that serial killers are not inherently deranged, but rather their murders are a learned response to humiliation experienced earlier in life. The killer internalizes cues associated with the humiliation and transfers their suppressed aggression onto victims as a way to regain power and control. Learning theories like frustration-aggression help explain why serial killers displace their anger onto surrogate victims rather than confronting the original source of their humiliation directly. Understanding serial murder through this psychological and learning perspective provides insights that were previously overlooked in research focusing only on external characteristics and behaviors.
Top 10 Horror Thriller Movies to Watch in 2013 HalloweenChen Stephen
The document provides a list and descriptions of the top 10 horror thriller movies to watch for Halloween in 2013. World War Z about a zombie pandemic is ranked number one. The Conjuring, a true story about paranormal investigators battling a dark presence in a farmhouse, is number two. Evil Dead about demons possessing friends in a remote cabin is number three. Mama about two girls taken in by an unknown entity is number four. A reimagining of Carrie is number five. The Purge about a night where all crime is legal is number six. Stoker about a mysterious uncle and his niece is number seven. Texas Chainsaw 3D in 3D is number eight. Warm Bodies, a romantic comedy
The document discusses the history and evolution of representation of women in comic books from the early 20th century to present day. It notes that early pulp fictions and comics often portrayed women as weak, helpless characters in need of rescue or as sexual objects. While some progress has been made with more prominent female characters, modern comics still tend to marginalize or objectify women through unrealistic body portrayals and an emphasis on sexuality and femininity over strength. The document suggests comic creators work to avoid objectification and provide more realistic and diverse portrayals of female characters.
Craig Collins was a rising journalist who left journalism for a successful career in business. However, he never lost his passion for writing. His first book, Thunder in the Mountains, is a work of literary nonfiction that provides a portrait of American gun culture through personal stories of growing up in rural areas surrounded by guns. The book explores the duality of guns representing both glory and a darker reality through its examination of Collins' experience accidentally shooting himself as a boy. With this debut, Collins has crafted a commanding and caring voice on a complex issue.
This document discusses various subgenres of horror films and their common conventions. It describes slasher films, psychological horror, supernatural horror, possession films, gothic horror, sci-fi horror, and comedy horror. For each subgenre, it provides examples of well-known films that fall into that category and lists some typical elements like settings, characters, themes, and plot devices commonly seen in those types of horror movies.
The document discusses different approaches to representing reality in media, including psychological realism, naturalism, and documentary conventions. Psychological realism aims to portray individual experiences as universal, but often reflects the views of privileged groups. Naturalism focuses on depicting typical social experiences rather than claiming psychological universality. Documentaries rely on images, testimony, and documentation to substantiate their representations of reality, but any curation of evidence inherently makes an argument. The lines between different genres are blurred, and all representations of reality carry ideological assumptions.
1) Spiderman's love interest Mary Jane is initially freaked out when she discovers Peter is actually Spiderman.
2) During a fight with the Green Goblin, tension builds between Peter and his friend Harry.
3) In the end, Spiderman saves Mary Jane's life, and she falls back in love with him upon learning his secret identity.
This document discusses film genres, specifically focusing on the genre of romantic comedy. It provides information on genre conventions and how genres evolve over time. For romantic comedies, it identifies several cycles or eras of the genre, including screwball comedies, sex comedies, radical romantic comedies, and neo-traditional romantic comedies. It also discusses how genres can reflect and shape cultural values and explores how directors can assert their own vision while working within genre conventions, using Stanley Kubrick's The Shining as an example.
The document provides background on an unnamed artist who struggled to gain admission to art school but was rejected twice. He then served in World War I before taking a job as a political speaker. It is later revealed that the artist was Adolf Hitler, though he is not famous for his art. The document then discusses various art history topics like symbolism, representation, and interpretation in images.
The document discusses how antagonists in literature are often associated with sex and exploiting others. It notes that vampires feed on humans and represent corrupt older values that prey on innocent youth. Vampires continue their existence by stealing the life force of those who matter less to them. The document suggests Wall Street traders act in a similar exploitative way. As long as people exploit each other selfishly, vampires will remain a relevant metaphor. It lists several literary works that feature antagonists who represent these exploitative traits, including Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and A Christmas Carol.
The document discusses how antagonists in literature are often associated with sex and exploiting others. It notes that vampires feed on humans and represent corrupt older values that prey on innocent youth. Vampires drain the life force from their victims to continue their own undead existence, much like how some view Wall Street traders as exploiting others for selfish gain. As long as people act this way towards each other, the concept of the vampire will remain relevant.
This document provides an agenda and materials for an English writing class. The agenda includes discussing the film "M Butterfly" and introducing an essay assignment on trickster tales. Students will evaluate the character of Song from "M Butterfly" as a potential trickster. The document also includes exam terms, discussion questions on "M Butterfly", and an introduction to the research paper topic on how trickster tales reveal aspects of human nature. Homework includes catching up on reading and posting an in-class writing response.
Here you have a teaching unit with the topic 'Natural Disasters'. You will also find a grammar section focused on the 'present perfect' and a different part devoted to the phonetics. Hope you enjoy it!
Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction where an investigator or detective investigates a crime, often murder. Edgar Allan Poe is considered the creator of detective fiction with his character C. Auguste Dupin. Wilkie Collins' novel The Moonstone established many elements that became essential in detective novels. Arthur Conan Doyle popularized the genre with his character Sherlock Holmes. Between the two world wars was the "Golden Age" of detective fiction, featuring authors like Agatha Christie, who created Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Hardboiled fiction emerged in the 1920s-30s US, exemplified by Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade and Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe.
Natural disasters such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, floods, and tornadoes can have significant environmental, economic, and human impacts. They often permanently alter the local landscape and can lead to the destruction of local species. Even minor storms can cause considerable economic damage through infrastructure destruction and business interruption. Beyond direct impacts, natural disasters also cause indirect effects like utility disruptions and emotional tolls like anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress. The loss of lives and homes creates further hardships for victims. Overall, natural disasters have wide-ranging consequences on environments, economies, and human well-being.
1. The document provides vocabulary activities related to natural disasters, including choosing words to describe pictures, matching disasters to descriptions, and filling in blanks with correct disaster-related words.
2. Activities include identifying words that don't belong in lists, changing bold words to correct options, and matching terms like volcanic, forest, and ocean to consequences, weather, and erosion.
3. Disasters discussed include droughts, earthquakes, floods, fires, tsunamis, tornadoes, thunderstorms, and snowstorms.
This document discusses natural disasters, including what defines a natural disaster versus a natural hazard. It then lists and provides brief descriptions of common natural disasters such as earthquakes, avalanches, landslides, floods, tsunamis, blizzards, droughts, and wildfires. For earthquakes specifically, it outlines what to do before, during, and after an earthquake occurs. It also notes that earthquakes are among the most likely natural disasters to occur in Chile and lists some active volcanoes in the country.
The document provides an introduction to the typical elements found in a detective story. It outlines six key elements: 1) The detective must have unique characteristics that make them memorable. 2) The crime, usually a murder or great theft, must be significant. 3) The criminal must be an intelligent opponent who can match wits with the detective. 4) All suspects, including the criminal, must be introduced early. 5) All clues discovered by the detective must also be available to the reader. 6) The solution must seem logical and obvious when explained by the detective so that the reader feels they could have solved it as well.
Natural disasters can severely injure or kill people and cause immense property damage. In 2010, natural disasters killed 295,000 people and cost insurers $218 billion globally. The 2011 Tsunami and earthquake in Japan killed over 10,000 people, while Hurricane Katrina in 2005 alone caused $81 billion in property damage to New Orleans, flooding 80% of the city under 15 feet of water and reducing the city's population. While natural disasters cannot be prevented, organizations help with relief efforts, rebuilding, and preparing for aftermaths that can include landslides and fires.
Disaster management involves preparing for, responding to, and recovering from disasters. A disaster is defined as any event that causes damage, loss of life, or deterioration of health beyond the capacity of local communities. Disaster nursing focuses on meeting physical and emotional needs resulting from disasters. Disasters can be natural or man-made, and affect communities in different ways depending on factors like speed of onset and duration. The phases of disaster management include preparedness, response, rehabilitation, and mitigation. Nurses play an important role in all phases through activities like community assessment, triage, disease surveillance, and psychological support.
Disasters can be natural or man-made. Natural disasters include cyclones, earthquakes, tornados, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, floods, wildfires, droughts, avalanches, and landslides. Man-made disasters involve human elements like negligence, intent, or technological failures and include nuclear bombings, acts of terrorism, and oil spills. The document then provides examples and details of some specific major natural and man-made disasters that have occurred throughout history.
In the above conversation it is belonging to stereotypes.Stereotyp.pdfanjanacottonmills
In the above conversation it is belonging to stereotypes.
Stereotypes are a form of generalization. When we generalize, we group or classify people,
places, or things according to the traits they have in common. For example, we may say most
Masai tribesmen are unusually tall or Scandinavians are usually fair-skinned. If our observations
are careless or too limited, the generalization may be faulty, as when someone says, \"Hollywood
hasn\'t produced any quality movies in the past fifteen years.\"
But stereotypes are more serious than mere faulty generalizations. They are fixed, unbending
generalizations about people, places, or things. When a stereotype is challenged, the person who
holds it is unlikely to modify or discard it, because it is based on a distortion of perception. As
Walter Lippmann explains, when we stereotype,\" we do not so much see this man and that
sunset; rather we notice that the thing is man or sunset, and then see chiefly what our mind is full
of on those subjects.\"75
The most common kinds of stereotyping are ethnic and religious. Jews are shrewd and cunning,
clannish, have a financial genius matched only by their greed. Italians are hot-tempered, coarse,
and sensual. The Irish, like the Poles, are big and stupid; in addition, they brawl, lust after heavy
liquor and light conversation. Blacks are primitive and slowwitted. (Often each of these
stereotypes includes a virtue or two – Jews are good family members, Italians artistic, Poles
brave, the Irish devout, blacks athletic.)
Beyond these stereotypes are numerous other, less common ones; Swedish women, foreign film
directors, Southern senators, physical education instructors, fundamentalist clergymen, agnostics,
atheists, democrats, republicans, Mexicans, scientist, prostitutes, politicians, English teachers,
psychiatrists, construction workers, black militants, college dropouts, homosexuals, and society
matrons. There are stereotypes of institutions as well: marriage, the church, government, the
military, the Founding Fathers, Western culture, the Judeo-Christian tradition. (A full list would
include even God and mother.)
FACTS DON\'T MATTER
It is pleasant to assume that when the facts are known, stereotypes disappear. However, that is
seldom the case. The late Harvard psychologist Gordon Allport, in The nature of Prejudice,
pointed out that \"it is possible for a stereotype to grow in defiance of all evidence…\"76 People
who stereotype don\'t dust accept the facts that are offered to them. They measure those facts
against what they already \"know.\" That is, they measure them against the stereotype itself.
Instead of seeing that the stereotype is false and therefore dismissing it, they reject the unfamiliar
facts.
People who think in terms of stereotypes tend to be selective in their perceptions. They reject
conditions that challenge their preformed judgment and retain those that reinforce it. Thus a
person can notice the Jewish employer promoting another Jew but ign.
Death of a Salesmen Literary Analysis (600 Words) - PHDessay.com. Death of a Salesman - A-Level English - Marked by Teachers.com. Death of a Salesman - plot summary - GCSE Drama - Marked by Teachers.com. Death of a Salesman Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays .... Death of a Salesman Essay - GCSE English - Marked by Teachers.com. Death of A Salesman Essay - GCSE English - Marked by Teachers.com. "Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller - Free Essay Example | PapersOwl.com. Death of a Salesman Essay | Psychological Concepts | Psychology .... Death of a salesman and the american dream essay. Death of a Salesman - English texts: High school - LibGuides at Al .... Death of salesman essays. Death of a Salesman Essay | Essay on Death of a Salesman for Students .... Death Of A Salesman Themes Free Essay Example. Death of A Salesman - GCSE English - Marked by Teachers.com. Death of a Salesman Summary - Free Essay Example - 991 Words .... Death of Salesman Summary. (DOC) Death of a Salesmen Analysis | Michelle Elias - Academia.edu. Death Of A Salesman American Dream Thesis Statement : Introduction. Essay On Death Of A Salesman. American Dream In Death Of A Salesman Research Paper : Essay Example on .... English Essay- Death of a salesman - University Linguistics, Classics .... PPT - Death of a Salesman PowerPoint Presentation, free download - ID .... Death of a Salesman as a Tragedy | Tragedy.
This document provides an overview of the key elements and genres of mysteries. It discusses the essential components of mysteries, which involve a secret or crime and its detection. Various types of detectives are described, such as hardboiled detectives, amateur detectives, and female private investigators. Popular subgenres like cozy mysteries, police procedurals, historical mysteries, and private eye stories are outlined. Key authors and characters are highlighted for each subgenre. Elements like clues, motives, and red herrings are noted as important parts of mysteries.
The Victorian Experience examines Wilkie Collins's novel The Woman in White through three key lenses:
1) Its development of sensation and detective fiction genres through the story of a woman imprisoned in an asylum under false pretenses and Walter Hartright's investigation.
2) Its exploration of debates around married women's property rights and sensational legal cases of the era.
3) Its portrayal of loving nonmarital bonds between Laura and Marian that subvert conventional expectations of marriage in Victorian society.
Aristotle Essay. Aristotles Ethics - Free Essay Example PapersOwl.comWendy Fricke
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Thriller fiction features ordinary heroes facing off against villains trying to destroy them or undermine stability. Thrillers are fast-paced with action, plot twists, vivid settings, and tension that builds until the climax. They often involve life-or-death stakes where the protagonist, such as a law enforcement agent or soldier, must overcome obstacles alone or in a small group cut off from resources. Part of thrillers' appeal comes from their gripping stories and rapid pacing, which has made the genre popular in both literature and film.
Veteran Essays.pdfVeteran Essays. Veterans day essays. Veterans day essay co...Maria Watson
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Religion and Peace in Christianity Summaryanthony_morgan
Christianity teaches that peace is central to its message and derives from God and Jesus Christ. The Bible instructs Christians to pursue peace, promote reconciliation, love their neighbors, and be peacemakers. Christians believe inner peace comes through prayer, meditation, living according to Jesus' teachings, and focusing on others through charity. Christianity contributes to world peace through interfaith dialogue, initiatives against violence through groups like the World Council of Churches, and peace-focused events and organizations like the World Conference on Religion and Peace and Pax Christi International.
Christanity and Peace from Living Religionanthony_morgan
The document discusses the benefits of meditation for reducing stress and anxiety. Regular meditation practice can help calm the mind and body by lowering heart rate and blood pressure. Studies have shown that meditating for just 10-20 minutes per day can have significant positive impacts on both mental and physical health over time.
Shinto is an ancient Japanese religion that originated around 500 BCE and was originally a mix of nature worship, fertility cults, and shamanism. It established itself as an official religion of Japan alongside Buddhism in the 8th century CE. Shinto has no single founder or scriptures and centers around the worship of kami, or spirits, which can be natural objects, guardian spirits, exceptional people, or abstract forces. Most Japanese follow both Shinto and Buddhism and engage in rituals from both religions throughout their lives.
Buddhism has strong ecological principles because it sees all things as interconnected and interdependent. Buddhists believe harming the environment harms all life. The Buddha taught living simply in harmony with nature. Buddhist teachings emphasize non-violence, compassion, avoiding waste, and uplifting all life. To address climate change, Buddhists modify the Four Noble Truths to recognize climate change as a reality caused by overconsumption, and call for changing attitudes of greed and fear through individual lifestyle changes like reducing consumption and carbon footprint.
The poem depicts a weapons training session where a sergeant harshly instructs new soldiers. He uses crude, racist, and demeaning language to belittle the soldiers and refer to the enemy. His goal is to strip the soldiers of their humanity and individuality so they will follow orders without hesitation. He wants to ensure they have the skills to stay alive but leaves them with the ominous message that they will likely end up "dead dead dead".
The document discusses the benefits of exercise for mental health. Regular physical activity can help reduce anxiety and depression and improve mood and cognitive function. Exercise causes chemical changes in the brain that may help protect against mental illness and improve symptoms.
The document discusses the origins and evolution of early religions. It suggests that the first religions developed as a way for early humans to explain natural phenomena and address existential questions around death, in the absence of scientific understanding. Religions provided answers and systems of control, even if based on guesses, to help reduce uncertainty and anxiety. Over time, religions became more codified with oral traditions that were later written down, leading to rigidity and conflicts both between and within religions as interpretations diverged. The origins of religion appear to have been based around fertility and worship of a mother goddess, which later evolved to include male gods as human understanding developed.
Aztec religious rituals were performed to communicate with the gods and ensure favorable outcomes like rain and crop yields. Rituals had specific procedures and purposes, from pragmatic rituals meant to influence natural phenomena to commemorative rituals representing mythology. Ritual preparation involved fasting and an evening vigil of singing, dancing, and offerings. The important New Fire Ceremony occurred every 52 years to light new fires and ensure the sun's journey continued. Another key ritual was the Etzalqualiztli festival held for the rain god Tlaloc, which featured human sacrifice and punishing servants to bring rain and forgiveness.
Sabbatai Zevi was a 17th century Jewish mystic who proclaimed himself the Messiah. He gained many followers but later converted to Islam under threat of death. His movement, Sabbateanism, continued secretly. Jacob Frank claimed to be the reincarnation of Sabbatai Zevi and founded the Frankist sect in the 18th century, which incorporated non-Jewish, heretical beliefs and practices and was excommunicated from Judaism.
Kabbalah is a form of Jewish mysticism that focuses on understanding God's essence through mystical means rather than just legal codes. Elements of Kabbalah can be found in the Bible. The Talmud warned of the dangers of mystical study, as some rabbis who engaged in it went mad or died. The Zohar, the most famous Kabbalistic text, was published in the 13th century and is studied symbolically rather than just as legal commentary. Kabbalah believes God reveals the divine through emanations called sefirot that can be contemplated to bring holiness to the world. Interest in Kabbalah has waxed and waned over the centuries among Jews.
Hassidism started in the 1700s in Eastern Europe in response to a void felt by many Jews. It emphasized that all Jews could grow closer to God through their daily lives, words, and thoughts. Today, Hasidic Jews are distinguished by their devotion to a dynastic leader (Rebbe), distinctive clothing, and study of Torah's inner meanings. The movement was founded by Rabbi Yisrael ben Eliezer, who taught the importance of prayer, love of God, love of fellow Jews, and having a spiritual mentor (Rebbe). Hassidism has helped preserve Orthodox Judaism and bring Jewish teachings to communities around the world.
The Learning Forum meeting discussed 3 topics:
1) The value of languages as cultural studies and whether Year 7 LOTE hours should be reduced or changed to combine language and computer skills. Possibilities to focus on careers in languages and invite ex-students to speak were also discussed.
2) Resources available from the local library for language learning through its Mango Languages program.
3) The advantages and disadvantages of having an assessment week block in Years 7-11.
The Learning Forum meeting was held on 15 February 2012 in Meeting Room 3 at 3:30 pm. The meeting discussed the state of languages and LOTE (Languages Other Than English) at Brigidine, noting that the main issue was not the quality of teachers but students' decisions to not continue language study in Stage 5 and 6 after only being required to take 100 hours of one language in Stage 4. The meeting was attended by KED, MJA, WCO, MJA, AMG, JNI, PKE, and AMO.
The document discusses different approaches to defining and categorizing formality in language use, referred to as register, tenor, or style. It notes that while linguistics textbooks may use the term "tenor" and prefer the term "style", registers are more narrowly defined as relating to specific activities like academic language. The document then presents one prominent five-category model of formality in spoken English proposed by Martin Joos, ranging from frozen, formal, consultative, casual, to intimate styles.
Images of Women in the Contemporary Periodanthony_morgan
Advertisements in the contemporary period often feature images of women. These images are commonly used to sell products by portraying women in ways that highlight their attractiveness or sex appeal. However, some argue that these portrayals can promote harmful stereotypes and objectification of women.
The document discusses the portrayal of women in advertising from the 1940s through the 1970s, moving from the traditional era to the transitional era. During the traditional era from the 1940s to 1950s, ads depicted women as housewives and focused on their domestic roles. In the transitional era of the 1960s and 1970s, ads began to show women in more varied roles outside the home, though sexism still persisted. The document traces the evolution of women's portrayals in ads over this time period from traditional gender roles to a period of increased social change.
The document discusses the benefits of exercise for mental health. Regular physical activity can help reduce anxiety and depression and improve mood and cognitive functioning. Exercise causes chemical changes in the brain that may help protect against mental illness and improve symptoms.
Sexist advertisements subtly reinforce cultural values of inequality between the sexes through various tactics. These include establishing superiority over women through size, attention and positioning. Another tactic is dismembering women's bodies and treating parts as separate, implying a woman's worth is based on appearance alone. Advertisements also frequently portray men as serious and powerful while showing women as childish clowns, perpetuating the attitude that women cannot be taken seriously. Body language such as bending also conveys submission, while some ads glorify the abuse-affection cycle that traps many women.
1. Detective Fiction – The Hero / Heroine
The first protagonists were usually detectives. As the genre evolved, he or she became a
policeman, an insurance salesman, a politician, a reporter, a crook, unemployed, or a bystander
sucked into events. However, as the genre branched and crossed with other forms of popular
fiction, most hard-boiled heroes and heroines have retained identifiable characteristics.
The protagonist embarks on a journey of discovery, like the heroes of classic Western
mythology, such as Odysseus, Percival, and Lancelot, in order to attain a goal or to recover
something lost. These figures faced dangers, challenges, and temptations that were physical,
moral, material, and sexual. Success depended on the acquisition of special knowledge, or on an
all-powerful sponsor (a god, patron, muse), fidelity to whom permitted success. There is a
personal cost to the protagonist. Classic detectives, from Poe's Dupin to Doyle's Sherlock
Holmes and Chesterton's Father Brown, clearly fit this definition. They answer to a higher
authority, whether God or Reason; they have special powers; and they undertake journeys that
put right wrongs and restore the wholeness of persons, families, or communities. In Adventure,
Mystery, Romance scholar John Cawelti has shown how these characteristics develop in
detective fiction. Robert Skinner has developed this topos specially for the hard-boiled
hero/heroine. 1
It is significant for the hard-boiled protagonist that the genre began during the urbanization of
Europe and North America, against a background of still-fresh frontier mythology in the latter.
This made for heroes and heroines who were urban and urbane, familiar with the intricacies and
elites of the city, but still possessed of practical "know-how" and an aggressive attitude toward
"unknown geography" and its inhabitants. This breadth of knowledge and abilities, deployed on
behalf of a private person, is a transformation of the divine sponsorship in myth that became a
key feature of the American detective tale with Allen Pinkerton and his stories of the "private
eye." The "eye" is by implication all-seeing, just as it appeared on Pinkerton's business card.
Privately hired omniscience represents a secularization of supernatural power, and Old Cap
Collier and the pulp heroes mentioned earlier appeared just as the first commercial security
forces were supplementing inefficient, small public police forces.
These detectives were obviously different from Sherlock Holmes or other English detectives of
the same period; they were also different from Poe's Dupin. They saw the world from the
perspective of the average citizen, the "man on the street," rather than from an educated,
aristocratic one. Most scholars feel that a specific historic development accounts for this tone —
the settling of the American West, with the resulting populist traditions. William Ruehlmann and
Marcus Klein have described how this modified the classic archetype and narrative. 2 Briefly, by
the era of Pinkerton, the U.S. had become a populist country. Hawthorne, Melville, and James
may have characterized American "high culture," but traditions of popular music, popular art,
and popular literature took hold among the masses. As Richard Slotkin has shown, elements of
Native American myth combined with frontier tall tales to make heroes of Daniel Boone, Davy
Crockett, and Annie Oakley. 3 These hero/ines spoke the vernacular (the language of the people)
or even a regional patois, a verbal distinction that hard-boiled fiction recaptures. They also
shared physical toughness. They could withstand heat and cold, arduous journeys, or
sleeplessness. If they were not superior in size, power, or speed, they acquitted themselves well
2. in one-on-one competitions, such as shooting, fistfights, card-playing, horse or auto-racing, and
the verbal joust. Usually it required a gang to defeat the popular hero in a fight, and no number
were a verbal match. "Wit and grit" was the phrase associated with these heroes between 1865
and 1900.
These characteristics in sum outline the hard-boiled hero/ine in the classic period of 1920
through 1950. The protagonist was usually a detective of the "private eye" variety, or
functionally similar. He or she used special expertise to restore a loss, which could mean finding
a missing object or bringing a murderer to justice. They did so for little or no money, often
simply for justice. They met challenges, trials, obstacles, and temporary defeats — were
kidnapped, beaten, shot, knifed, snubbed, humiliated, and dismissed as inferiors. It became a
ritual that the protagonist had to pass out, either from a beating or drugs. The symbolic meaning
of this — the hero's passage into the underworld — is clear from the classics. Often, in the
narratives of Hammett and sometimes Chandler and Macdonald, the hero has significant dreams
that relate to the theme. Hard-boiled protagonists who lose consciousness regain it with greater
strength or clarity or ability, and thereby solve the case. The hard-boiled hero or heroine also
carries on the tradition of verbal prowess: he or she can use language against opponents and is
conscious of words and their effects.
More recently Kathleen Klein, in The Woman Detective: Gender and Genre (University of
Illinois Press, 1995) has surveyed nearly 300 female detectives and taken up the question of
whether or not the genre can actually be progressive. Taking a feminist viewpoint, she
documents the parallels in social history and the women's rights movement. A very useful and
provocative study
1
Skinner, The New Hard-Boiled Dicks (San Bernardino, CA: Brownstone Books, 1995), 7-20;
Cawelti, Adventure, Mystery, Romance Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), 65-72,
142-54. 2 William Ruehlmann, Saint With a Gun: The Unlawful American Private Eye, 21-59;
Klein, Easterns, Westerns and Private Eyes, 133-77. 3 Richard Slotkin, Regeneration Through
Detective Fiction – The Code
When the protagonist is a detective, she or he is presumed to have a set of ethics or moral values.
These are called "the detective code," or simply "the code," when discussing the genre. The
basics of the code are best summarized by Richard Layman in his discussion of what James
Wright of the Pinkerton Detective Agency taught Dashiell Hammett. To summarize, the
detective should be anonymous, eschew publicity, be close-mouthed, and secretive. He or she
protects good people from bad people, who do not live by the rules; thus, one may break the
rules in dealing with them. The detective ignores rules and conventions of behavior, because the
client pays for this. Loyalty to the client is very important, but may be superceded by a personal
sense of justice or the rule of law. The detective must keep an emotional distance from the
people in the case, retain an objective point of view, and consider all pertinent clues.
3. The classic articulations of the detective code are those delivered by Sam Spade at the end of
Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon and by Philip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler's The Big
Sleep. But these set-pieces are already variations on the basic credo above. Spade's speech
stresses his loyalty to his ex-partner, his profession, his sense of self-preservation, and his refusal
to be a romantic "sap."
When a man's partner is killed he's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't make any
difference what you thought of him…. Then it happens we were in the detective business. Well,
when one of your organization gets killed it's bad business to let the killer get away with it. It's
bad all around – bad for that one organization, bad for every detective everywhere…. Since I've
also got something on you, I couldn't be sure that you wouldn't decide to shoot a hole in me some
day…. I don't even like the idea of thinking that there might be one chance in a hundred that
you'd played me for a sucker. (183-84)
This is already a narrower, more cynical version of the code. Not surprisingly, Chandler
liberalized Philip Marlowe's code in The Big Sleep, stressing his "insubordination" of authority
and his personal thriftiness, instead of a narrow professionalism.
I'm thirty-three years old, went to college once and can still speak English if there's any demand
for it. There isn't much in my trade. I worked for Mr. Wilde, the District Attorney, as an
investigator once. … I was fired. For insubordination. I test very high on insubordination… (7)
Marlowe charges $25 a day and expenses. For solving General Sternwood's blackmail case, he
merits "fifty dollars and a little gasoline" (69), which he volunteers to return when his client
complains:
"I'd like to offer you your money back. It may mean nothing to you. It might mean something to
me."
"What does it mean to you?"
"It means I refused payment for an unsatisfactory job. That's all." (127-8)
When Vivian Regan supposes that money motivates Marlowe, he mocks her:
"All I have the itch for is money. I am so money greedy that for twenty-five bucks a day and
expenses, mostly gasoline and whiskey, I do my thinking myself, what there is of it; I risk my
whole future, the hatred of the cops and of Eddie Mars and his pals, I dodge bullets and eat saps
and say thank you very much, if you have any trouble, I hope you'll think of me, I'll just leave
one of my cards in case anything comes up." (137-38)
Marlowe also defines more clearly than Spade did the detective's relation to the law. When Mona
Mars asserts that "as long as people gamble there will be places for them to gamble, Marlowe
tells her: "That's just protective thinking. Once outside the law you're all the way outside….
Don't try to sell me on any high-souled racketeers. They don't come in that pattern" (117). But
Marlowe doesn't believe in toadying to the police either: "It's against my principles to tell as
4. much as I've told [the police] tonight, without consulting [the client]. As for the cover-up, I've
been in the police business myself, you know. They come a dime a dozen in any big city. Cops
get very large and emphatic when an outsider tries to hide anything, but they do the same things
themselves every other day…." (69-70).
Most versions of the "code" share these common points. The private eye is 1) dedicated to the
client, 2) economical, if not thrifty, in his expenses and personal habits, 3) loyal to his
profession, 4) cooperative, to some degree, with the police, 4) concerned with self-survival, and
5) unwilling to be duped by anyone. Later detectives, such as Archer, Spenser, and Warshawski,
add a considerable amount of empathetic humanism to the first feature above.
Detective Fiction – Themes
To discuss theme, one must first grasp the difference between the apparent plot and the revealed
plot. In the apparent plot of The Maltese Falcon, Sam Spade is helping Brigid to find a valuable
object and to discover who killed his partner, or so readers think while reading. But when they
have finished, readers can see that, in retrospect, Spade betrayed and sacrificed her, so as not to
be killed like his partner. This is the revealed plot. In the apparent plot of Farewell, My Lovely,
Philip Marlowe is looking for Moose Malloy and delivering ransom for a necklace, but in the
revealed plot he has uncovered the lower class and criminal origins of a wealthy, socialite wife,
who then kills her old boyfriend, flees, and later commits suicide. The revealed plot often gives
readers the dark side of the author's theme or beliefs, so it must be taken seriously. Ever since
French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan demonstrated how the revealed plot of Poe's "The
Purloined Letter" concerned Poe's conflict over his parentage, critics have treated the revealed
plot as if it were the writer's unconscious. Sometimes this is true, but the revealed plot can also
be the object of conscious, methodical craft, as in Ross Macdonald's works. The apparent and
revealed plots must merge plausibly in the denouement for a proper sense of closure. Some of
the more common apparent plots involve:
-- the search for a reputedly valuable object that turns out to be worthless. The Maltese
Falcon borrowed this motif from Arthur Canon Doyle's "The Sign of Four," and it has
been popular ever since. It can be reversed, as in Cotton Comes to Harlem, where the
apparently worthless bale of cotton actually did contain the missing money.
-- an apparent crime that the revealed plot shows to be a repetition of an earlier crime. In
Ross Macdonald's The Underground Man, Stanley Broadhurst disappears, running off
with a woman, just as his father Leo ran off with a woman years earlier. Archer will find
them literally buried one atop the other. In The Postman Always Rings Twice, Frank
Chambers is finally convicted of murder for accidentally killing his wife in a car
accident, when he was acquitted of deliberately killing her (then) husband in a faked
accident earlier.
5. -- the wealthy family with a problem or secret. The Sternwoods, the Grayles, the Galtons, and the
Broadhursts need detectives to straighten out their messy lives. Those who believe that the rich
are scandalous but not in need of correction from their inferiors probably read novelists of the
English School or S.S. Van Dine. The hard-boiled novel recruited a readership during the
Depression and afterwards in part by appealing to prejudices against the rich, and it has worked
them shamelessly ever since. Of course, the rich have valuable things to lose and the means to
hire detectives; many of the rich or their ancestors were once poor, so the story of their ascent
can be scandalous. Paradoxically, the hard-boiled novel often views the rich as prospering
through evil means and yet naïve about evil. The detective must be especially vigilant about his
code when dealing with the rich, who will seduce him by money and manners. In fact, the
detective's parsimony will be most emphasized in novels where wealth is investigated, because
the circulation of money must be viewed suspiciously.
-- the antagonist who is a double of the detective or the author. Edgar Allan Poe is usually
credited with inventing this motif in his story "William Wilson." Hammett played with it,
in his character Clyde Wynant, who looks like the author, in The Thin Man. Raymond
Chandler provided Marlowe with a double in Rusty Regan of The Big Sleep, and he wrote
the genre's first masterpiece of this type, The Long Goodbye, in which he developed three
psychological faces of himself. In The Galton Case Lew Archer essentially investigates
the past of a character much like author Ross Macdonald. Paul Auster is a contemporary
author who uses the motif in his quasi-detective (but not hard-boiled) novels.
-- cleaning up a corrupt town. Although developed in the pulps as far back as the 1870s
and 1880s, this plot motif was more often seen in the western and the crime novel until
Hammett's Red Harvest. Mickey Spillane is the genre's great town-cleaner, taking on the
Mafia or the Communist Party in such novels as My Gun Is Quick and One Lonely Night.
Detective Fiction – Villains
The hard-boiled detective novel uses villains differently than does hard-boiled crime fiction. If a
narrative has a private eye, there will either be a specific, individualized, bad guy or a culpable
class, diffusing blame over a social strata. Casper Gutman of The Maltese Falcon serves as an
example of the former. No author lets readers get too close to the villain, but Hammett still gives
readers much specific detail about Gutman's physique, his clothes, his habits, his motivations,
and his conversational style. Spade meets him three times, and they are conversational equals.
Gutman values Spade enough to invite him on the renewed quest to find the falcon. But
Hammett makes sure the reader understands that Gutman is evil, implying that he abuses his
daughter Rhea physically. In the film, this memorable role was played in the film by Sidney
Greenstreet.
The novels of Ross Macdonald, on the other hand, often have no single, discernable villain. The
"evil" that Lew Archer faces has apparent human faces, but Macdonald disperses blame over a
class, a social condition, or he locates it in a distant source, such as Nevada gangsters. In The
6. Galton Case, Macdonald presents a series of briefly detestable characters – Peter Culligan, Maria
Galton, John Galton, Gordon Sable. But the revelation that Sable killed Culligan pales before the
revelation of the tragic childhood and youth of John Brown. Sable, after all, killed Culligan to
save his unstable wife, who had been the victim of Culligan and assorted Reno gangsters, whose
brutality Macdonald shows his readers clearly. They are blame-worthy, but the real evil-doers
are people who would raise a child as Brown was raised (his mother and stepfather) and the
upper classes, living insulated on California hillsides from the perils and promise of "coming to
be" someone genuine that Brown has suffered.
In the hard-boiled crime novels of Cain, Woolrich, Thompson and others, however, the
protagonist is the bad guy, so "villainy" is constructed differently. Readers are allowed to know,
even to empathize with someone who commits crimes, even murder. The police, legal, or
investigative structure will be represented by an individual or group who may be brutal or unfair,
but who ultimately bring the protagonist to justice. It is not accurate to call these antagonists the
"villains," for they represent justice – they are necessary to our sense of proper thematic closure.
But their manipulation of the protagonist's life can seem so cavalier – as in the bet between D.A.
Sackett and attorney Katz in Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice – that we begin to
sympathize with murderous Frank Chambers, played sympathetically in the film by John
Garfield (right). Sackett and Katz become merely the human faces of the legal/insurance
structure that "controls" modern life, predicting all of our choices through actuarial statistics. In
this sense, the hard-boiled crime novel villainizes the restrictive legal and social structure of
modern capitalism. But this romantic rebellion can only be made appealing for so long, before a
substitute gratification must be offered: it's no fun to rebel if it leads to your death. The
conventions of the genre demand that justice finally be served. If the reader's appetizer is
sympathy for the rebel, then his dessert is relief that he does not meet the rebel's fate.
Cain's Double Indemnity is a good example of a second development in the hard-boiled crime
novel – to give the power structure a human face. Murderous Walter Huff's antagonist is his
office colleague Keyes, the ace actuary and three-dimensional character. Huff respects Keyes'
ability, they converse respectfully, and Huff is almost fond of his opponent. This tendency is less
often encountered in hard-boiled detective fiction, though recent crime and detective novelists,
such as Wambaugh, Higgins, and Ellroy, have found sympathetic opponents useful.
Detective Fiction – The Femme Fatale
The femme fatale, defined simply, is an irresistibly attractive woman, especially one who leads
men into danger. In hard-boiled fiction, she is usually the protagonist's romantic interest. There
have not yet been any hommes fatales (though they abound in gothic and romance fiction). The
protagonist's involvement with her may range from mild flirtation to passionate sex, but in the
denouement he must reject or leave her, for the revealed plot shows her to be one of the causes of
the crime.
7. Like the hard-boiled hero, the femme fatale dates to classic myth. An example is Circe, who
turned Odysseus' men into swine in Book X of The Odyssey and the Sirens, whose beauty and
alluring song attracted his sailors in Book XII. Odysseus vanquishes the first with a magic root
from Hermes and the second by sealing his men's ears with wax. The necessity of extra-human
help in resisting the femme fatale's sexual temptation is an ancient feature of the archetype;
adherance to the "code" fills this role in the hard-boiled novel. Mary Ann Doane's feminist study
explains how "erotic barter" figures in this fiction as well as in film noir. 1
In the Middle Ages, Christianity refashioned this archetype as a devil, called the succubus. The
hard-boiled novel, as William Marling has shown, draws on this concept of a female sexual spirit
who visits men in their sleep and has sexual intercourse with them. Succubae were thought to
disguise themselves in women and to be identifiable by such features as small, pointed teeth,
pointed ears, and sharp noses. 2 To contrast with the succubus, medieval Grail Romances
developed several more noble types: the compassionate Queen, La belle dame sans Merci (to
modernize, a "heartbreaker"), and the true love. An important attribute of the hero became his
ability to distinguish between types of women and to respond accordingly, to discern "good
women" from bad. The femme fatale has been roundly condemned as misogynist by feminist
literary criticism, though in most (and especially contemporary) hard-boiled narrative the reader
is more apt to find modern female characters with some archetypal traits, and female characters
unrelated to the archetype at all, rather than the pure archetype. Hammett's Dinah Brand (Red
Harvest) and Janet Henry (The Glass Key) are early examples of femmes fatales who defy the
misogynist label. More recently, scholarship on film noir has seen the role of femme fatale as
empowering, pointing to Bette Davis and Kathleen Turner, among others.
One of the purest archetypal representations, however, also comes from Hammett. Gabrielle
Dain in The Dain Curse is sexually attractive, belongs to a cult, uses drugs, and has small,
pointed ears and teeth. The detective has to imprison her in a cottage to see her through delirium
tremens and exorcise her lust. Raymond Chandler gave the same physical features to murderous,
sex-obsessed Carmen Sternwood in The Big Sleep. Had he succumbed to her, Marlowe would
have been shot at the novel's end. Other classic femme fatale characters (not pure archetypes) are
Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon, Velma Valento/Helen Grayle in Farewell, My
Lovely, Cora in The Postman Always Rings Twice and Phyllis in Double Indemnity. These
characters are more individuated and less archetypal in appearance and personality. Authors tend
to deploy the femme fatale in signature fashion. Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer novels are
filled with buxom blonde killers. Ross Macdonald treats his female characters much more
sympathetically and psychologically; few qualify as archetypal. James M. Cain lessened his use
after Double Indemnity; his widowed heroine in Mildred Pierce (1941, not covered in this study)
makes her way alone through the Depression. Use of the archetype has not been restricted to
male writers. Honey West, the detective created by Gloria and Forest Fickling, embodied many
archetypal conventions in her "blonde bombshell" appearance. The femme fatale appears in
many contemporary works. Even those writers who avoid the archetype or "unmask" it, such as
Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton, sometimes use it negatively.
A good example of how the femme fatale is used creatively is Hammett's The Maltese Falcon.
There Sam Spade is attracted to three women, a motif that echoes the ancient Greek Fates, who
tell men the future. He is involved in an adulterous affair with his partner's wife, Iva Archer. His
8. secretary, Effie Perrine, is a tom-boyish, competent girl-next-door who would make the perfect
spouse. Brigid O'Shaughnessy, the femme fatale, seems to promise sensuality and wealth, but
Spade sees through her – and uses her when she thinks she is using him. The novel's end leaves
Spade alienated from Effie, who is, ironically, mad that he rejected the "romance" of Brigid,
while Iva knocks at the door. It is a grim morality play about making your bed and lying in it.
The femme fatale in movies predates the advent of film noir. Theda Bara and Marlene Dietrich
already played the role in the silent era. The type appears in the 1930s crime movies and then in
film noir. Bette Davis was an early example and later used the conventions to portray strong
characters (Beyond the Forest, The Letter). Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Crawford (right), who
had played strong-willed, working women in the 1930s, enhanced their fading careers in the
1940s by playing some of the most dramatic femmes fatales: Stanwyck in Double Indemnity,
Clash by Night and Witness to Murder; Crawford in The Damned Don't Cry, Possessed and
Sudden Fear. Ida Lupino was one of the most convincingly human of the movie femmes fatale
(The Asphalt Jungle), contrasting with the icy eroticism of Stanwyck (High Sierra; Beware, My
Lovely; While the City Sleeps). Other notable performances include Lana Turner's in The
Postman Always Rings Twice, Joan Bennett's in Scarlet Street and Rita Hayworth's in Gilda and
The Lady from Shanghai.
Detective Fiction – Imagery
Detective fiction knows no metaphoric bounds today, but texts of the classic period make use of
common kinds of imagery. The images per se vary, but they cluster around the opposition of
hard versus soft, and smooth versus rough. This might seem obvious, but it has some history.
The terms "hard-boiled" and "soft-boiled" derive from American commonplaces about eggs.
Now that they come in boxes from the store, eggs are less metaphorically central than they once
were. Fifty years ago most Americans knew to the minute how long they wanted their breakfast
eggs immersed in boiling water. A "two-minute egg" had a runny, liquefied yolk, while a "ten-
minute egg" was solid throughout. The distinction between hard throughout and soft inside but
hard outside was widely known. The "hard-boiled" was in opposition to the "brittle," for under
the shell might be softness.
This imagery complimented another about sap. A people closer to nature, whose syrup came
from maples, knew that "sap" was sticky stuff leaking from trees, which also had hard exteriors.
The noun "sap" grew up after the Civil War and appears in Mark Twain's work ( "saphead") to
refer to someone who is foolish, whose mental processes are not structured and contained. The
verb "to sap" meant to hit someone over the head with a blackjack, causing the victim to become
"soft." By the time it appeared in hard-boiled narrative, "sap" meant "sucker" or weak -- the
opposite of "hard-boiled." Sap and soft-boiled correspond to sentiment, gratitude, and romantic
love, which would weaken the hard-boiled hero/ine.
9. The contrast between the smooth and the rough is an extension of the distinction between the
hard and the soft, with the added meaning of "modern" vs. "old-fashioned." During the classic
hard-boiled period, the smooth was urged upon consumers in clothing (ready-made clothes
instead of home-spun) in home appliances (gas and electric ovens, instead of coal stoves) and
transportation (the automobile, instead of the horse). Protagonists of hard-boiled fiction tend to
be clean-shaven, dress in smooth fabrics, drive cars, live in apartments (often efficiencies), and
to use modern products. As I argue in The American Roman Noir, hardness and refusal to "play
the sap" are usually synecdochal representions of the modern economy. 1
Chandler stands out as the great creator of imagery in the genre and one of the greatest in
American literature. Philip Marlowe's world abounds in comparisons, giving the detective the
complexion of a polymath. Chandler's metaphors are mostly similes. They most often describe a
character memorably on first appearance, saving the author effort when the character reappears.
Thus Carmen Sternwood in the first four pages of The Big Sleep walks "as if she were floating,"
has teeth "as shiny as porcelain," lowers her eyelashes like "a theatre curtain," sucks her thumb
"like a baby with a comforter," and "went up the stairs like a deer" (2-4). The reader understands
that she is infantile, transparently cunning, and energetic. "Artificial" seems to be the concept
Chandler had in mind; he returns to it later in the novel: Carmen acts "as if [she had] artificial
lips and had to be manipulated by springs" (147). A description such as the later reminds us of
Victorian machinery – exposed and clumsy. Even here the author indirectly values the modern:
that which is seamless, functional, and rhythmic. Chandler often uses similes in early
descriptions of characters and then invokes them again later.
Chandler mined a few subjects for his metaphors, all of which can be seen contributing to his
description of General Sternwood in The Big Sleep. Chandler's primary referents were time,
mass, motion and inertia. The General "nodded, as if his neck were afraid of the weight of his
head" (7). But Chandler also used California life and the daily culture of Los Angeles: The
General's "few locks of white hair clung to his scalp, like wild flowers fighting for life on a bare
rock" (6). Chandler was intensely conscious of death and disease: The General's orchids are
"plants with nasty meaty fingers and stalks like the newly washed fingers of dead men" (5).
Chandler spent his days at home writing, in a domestic, even kitchen-bound, existence: The
General's greenhouse is like a "slow oven," where Marlowe feels "trussed like a turkey
1
William Marling, The American Roman Noir, 39-92. See also William Marling Raymond
Chandler. Boston: Twayne, 1986.
Detective Fiction – Evolution
Many detective novelists originally observed the central tenets of the mystery genre, which hold
that readers be presented with all the suspects, that no clues be hidden from the audience and that
the crime be plausible. They were not concerned with baffling or intricate plots to the extent that
writers of the English school were, but they still created and preserved mysteries. There was
10. presumed to be a much closer thematic relation between the apparent and revealed plots than in
the English school.
But the hard-boiled genre had no sooner come into focus than writers began to innovate, as is
typical of genre fiction. Writers look for ways to win new readers; they strive to keep the genre
tuned to contemporary mood. Competing for the same audience were crime fiction and crime
movies, which had already discovered that they could reverse the criminal/police equation,
making interesting or even sympathetic protagonists from outlaws. Some of these had already
appeared in frontier myth and Western fiction. Public rectitude and the movie censors, however,
demanded that crime be punished in movies. Insofar as a criminal protagonist approached the
status of "hero," he had to be justified as a child of hard times, born in a ghetto, homeless during
the Depression, or scarred by one of the World Wars. This made him society's victim, occupying
the same social margin inhabited by the private eye. Unlike the private eye, who could "see"
through people, events, mores, and social strata, the criminal hero saw the rest of society as
impenetrably walled off, incomprehensible. No knowledge or skill or manners would vault him
over to the other side, where the winners, the lucky, and the rich lived. Thus, his or her whole life
assumed the "fated" tone that was usually restricted to the discovery portion of the private eye
novel. In David Madden's invaluable collection on the "tough guy novelists," Joyce Carol Oates
famously remarked of James M. Cain's heroes that their knowledge of the world seems "limited
to the radius of their desire." Desire is key: not possessed of the private eye's "vision," the
criminal protagonist usually seems to act out of desire, which s/he believes is the universal
common denominator. Overlooked by readers is the fact that, when the criminal is a first-person
narrator, s/he knows the outcome already but suppresses it. Readers, however, attend to crime
fiction or movies only partially because of their identification with desire and its objects. They
also know that there is a "corrective" to pure desire, be it arrest or death. The reader's prurient
identification is balanced by acceptance of this fate. The reading motive becomes: How far can
desire proceed before the inevitable punishment? Both the private eye and the crime novels
feature hero/ines who pay a price for pursuing an object or a quest and who are left the wiser, but
the crime novel's wisdom is far darker. At its most dire, there is statement of Cornell Woolrich:
―First you dream, then you die.‖
The hard-boiled novel began to branch as Raymond Chandler, in the late 1940s and early 1950s,
sought to make it not only a vehicle of social comment but of autobiographical reflection. After
The Long Goodbye (1953), some hard-boiled fiction began to shed its toughness and some of the
"code." Ross Macdonald came to the fore of this "progressive" edge of the genre in The Galton
Case (1959) and took it to fulfillment in The Underground Man (1971). Scholars such as Eric
Mottram believe that this exhausted the "formal" possibilities of the genre, for Lew Archer
"finally sees the genre into impossibility, moving into fictions of self-deception and self
expenditure." 1
Archer had descendents – Robert Parker's Spenser, for example – but it is true that hard-boiled
fiction branches like kudzu after Macdonald. Some authors availed themselves of techniques
made familiar through Modernist texts; works such as Higgins' 1974 novel Cogan's Trade (see
below) consisted of fragments of conversation overheard and assembled by the reader. This
novel paved the way for The Sopranos television series. Other writers followed the contemporary
lines of development represented by ethnic literature and renascent regionalism. After the
11. African-American detective came the woman, the Jewish, the Native American, the Creole, and
the Asian-American detective. In the 1980s there were detectives whose beats were Detroit or
Boston, Cincinnati or Chicago, New Orleans, or Indianapolis. In the 1990s there were art-
dealing, cab-driving, and handicapped detectives. "A detective for everyone" reflects the fact that
the genre has adapted to another change: the fragmentation of mass media markets, begun by
cable television in the 1980s. Niche marketing may seem like a diminution, but it's well to
remember that hard-boiled fiction began as niche fiction, and it's still quite strong.
The Los Angeles Detective Novel
Los Angeles has long been the chief locale of the American detective novel. The world of its
racial minorities, however, was marginalized by the Perry Masons and Phillip Marlowes and
then repressed by the LAPD procedural. It has been reclaimed by Ezekial ―Easy‖ Rawlins, the
African-American detective of Walter Mosley. The background of Devil in a Blue Dress (1990),
from details of the 1940s to the protagonist’s early job in an aircraft plant, is indebted to Chester
Himes’s If He Hollers Let Him Go (1945), but from there Mosley recaptures the ―Central‖
district of Chandler and extends the geography of the LA detective to the black communities of
Watts and Compton. Worried about paying his mortgage, Easy takes $100 to find a blonde,
Daphne Monet, who favors nightclubs on the black side of town. She has stolen $30,000 of her
white patron’s money which, after an immersion in the world of sexual debauchery and race
politics that leads her to kill one man, she splits with Easy and his violent sidekick Mouse. Easy
has a distant and antagonistic relation to the LAPD; instead, Mosley thematizes Easy’s pride in
home ownership and ends the novel with him watering his yard and pondering the morality of
the justice that has transpired. In A Red Death (1991), Easy owns apartment buildings he bought
with stolen money that he recovered and kept. Pursued by the IRS, he cooperates by spying on a
union organizer, and again extortion and murder have underworld roots. The third Easy Rawlins
novel, White Butterfly (1994), is set in 1956. Easy helps police investigate the murders of four
young women, one of whom, a UCLA student and daughter of a city official, led a double life as
a stripper. These novels prize the vernacular details of African-American life, but emphasize the
constant compromises required to ―get along with the Man.‖
Mosley’s recent work has departed from the genre; his mantle has been taken up by Gar
Anthony Haywood, whose detective Aaron Gunner operates from an office behind a Watts
barber-shop in Fear of the Dark (1989) and All the Lucky Ones are Dead {2000). Haywood’s
novels are more driven by dialog and less violent than Mosley’s. Most recently Paula Woods has
brought the African-American LA sleuth novel full circle, introducing black LAPD Detective
Charlotte Justice (Inner City Blues [1999], Stormy Weather [2001], Dirty Laundry [2005], and
Strange Bedfellows [2006]).
Lucha Corpi and Michael Nava have created Chicano/a detectives. In Corpi’s Eulogy for a
Brown Angel (1992), Detective Gloria Damasco and her friend find a four-year-old boy dead
during a Chicano Civil Rights march in Los Angeles in 1970. She returns to the case eighteen
years later, employing a ―dark gift‖ that allows her to dream and to see answers to problems.
Cactus Blood (1995) is set in Delano during the farmworkers’ strike of 1973, and Black Widow’s
Wardrobe (2000) delves into folklore. Nava weaves Chicano history and folklore in his stories of
detective Henry Rios, a gay lawyer, who moves from San Francisco to Los Angeles in How
12. Town (1990) and investigates the city in The Hidden Law (1992), The Death of Friends (1996),
The Burning Plain (1997) and Rag and Bone (2001).
The contemporary LA detective novel shows breadth and depth. Michael Connelly, who
worked as a crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times, updates the romantic LA detective to
include the reality of time cards and weekend rotations in his 12 ―Harry Bosch‖ L.A.P.D. novels
published between 1996 and 2008. Another police procedural writer, T. Jefferson Parker, has
written 15 novels set mostly in Orange County or San Diego. Better known is Jonathan
Kellerman, whose child psychologist detective Alex Delaware stars in 21 novels. Denise
Hamilton, another ex-Times reporter, has written five detective novels about reporter Eve
Diamond, who investigates crime in the local Latino, Asian, and Russian communities. LA’s
Orthodox Jewish community provides the settings for Faye Kellerman’s 17 novels about police
detective Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus, and Rochelle Majer Krich has nine Jewish-themed PI
novels. There is a throwback: Stuart Kaminsky’s Toby Petersis a private detective who
investigates film stars in 1940s Hollywood. Kem Nunn has pioneered a ―surfer/noir‖ variation
of the detective in a trilogy (Tapping the Source, 1984; Dogs of Winter, 1997; and Tijuana
Straits, 2004) that pursues the environmental themes to which Macdonald, an avid birder, turned
in The Underground Man (1971), set during the 1964 Coyote Canyon fire, and Sleeping Beauty
(1973), whose central event is the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill.
Although LA gained a place in detective fiction rather late, it has become an iconic locale.
Films such as Chinatown have reinforced the mystique. Combining important industries such as
oil, aviation, and cinema with terrain stretching from the Pacific over mountains to high desert,
Los Angeles has offered writers endless possibilities. Its twentieth-century evolution into a
highly multicultural city presages LA’s continued importance in the genre.
1
Eric Mottram, "Ross Macdonald and the Past of a Formula," Art in Crime Writing:Essays on
Detective Fiction, Ed.Bernard Benstock (New York: St. Martin's, 1983), 98.