Detective story
As a literary genre, the detective story is a sub-genre of the detective novel that emerged in the 19th century , with the focus on the reconstruction and investigation of a crime by the detective . Like hardly any other type of short story, the detective story is determined by precisely describable elements and generic conventions and has thus gained a sharp profile in the consciousness of the reader, which shapes their expectations with regard to a predictable scheme (frame) .
In the classic detective story, the clarification of a fictional, at the beginning mostly inexplicable and for the reader to the end shrouded in mystery fact is described, which triggers the investigative work of a highly gifted, often eccentric detective.
Edgar Allan Poe's short stories The Double Murder on Rue Morgue (1841) and The Stolen Letter (1844) are considered to be the early prototypes that had a decisive influence on the development of the detective story as a specific literary form .
Characteristic elements of the classic detective story
The detective makes use of circumstantial evidence, psychology, combinatorics, intuition and logical conclusion to solve the case and is the focus of interest as the “solver” of astonishing intuition, razor-sharp logic, unmistakable cunning and agility.
Other characteristic elements of the classic detective story of the 19th and early 20th centuries are, in addition to false leads (red herrings) or ambiguous and hidden clues, innocent suspects, a police overburdened with solving the mysterious crime and an assistant to the detective who acts as his friend or confidant describes the clarification of the case without seeing through the course of events and the investigation process itself in all details. In the context of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle , this assistant, usually referred to as the "Watson figure", acts as an intermediary between the extremely astute, well-informed detective and the reader who is groping in the dark.
The detective story thus offers a high level of identification for the viewer or reader. While reading or going to the cinema, the latter projects his wishes for the restoration of normal order and security onto the detective, since this order was shaken by the crime at the beginning of the thriller . When the case is resolved, the reader or viewer feels safe and reassured; He can even experience the resolution of the case as a confirmation of his own person, since in the end he can understand the solution steps in detail from the detective's point of view, even if he could not anticipate them beforehand in this form.
In addition, the detective acts as a representative of the respective social values. Through the methodical approach and the thoroughly planned actions, the recipient believes that nature and man can be tamed with science, logic and technology. The best known example is the already mentioned character of Sherlock Holmes in the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Tension and surprise as the basic functional mechanisms of the genre
The classic detective story draws its special charm from its very specific enigmatic character; this in addition to the voltage include (suspense) especially the element of surprise (surprise) to the basic mechanisms of this type. In the guessing game that is presented to the reader, the complete solvability is usually only suggested by a separate analysis: The "clues" or facts and information that ultimately become the decisive part of the resolution of the case are initially incorrectly contextualized and presented to the reader in such a way that he cannot do anything with them. Their actual relevance only becomes apparent afterwards with the surprising solution at the end of the story; In the actual clarification phase at the end, which can often be broken down into different partial solutions, a backward-facing, analytical moment of tension is primarily generated. In this new, surprising context of the eventual dissolution, all elements introduced in the exposition (people, motifs or actions) play a precisely defined role.
Characteristics of the plot structure, characters and locations
The genre-specific principles of suspense and surprise result in particular structural necessities for the entire plot of the detective story, which is much more schematic than in other short stories: the introductory description of the crime is followed by the search for an answer to the questions about the perpetrator (who? ) , the course of events (how?) and the motive (why?) ; the story ends with the complete investigation of the case and the conviction of the culprit. The plot (plot) of the classical detective story seems in many cases rather improbable or unrealistic and has something, since each element of the action block only rarely with real criminal cases mean a whole in the resolution of the case must.
The characteristic puzzle structure of the genre also has an effect on the design of the investigating figures. The central figure of the detective must have outstanding skills as an “analytical medium”. In order not to reveal the solution to the case prematurely, the detective, as the narrator, must keep his distance from the reader; Accordingly, it makes sense to choose an eccentric loner as the investigative figure who is more or less outside of society. As a first-person narrator , on the other hand, the "Watson figure" can be found above all in the early detective story before the increasing use of other constructions, who describes the course of the investigation as a friend of the detective who experiences and admires. The only limited view of this narrator on the events and their meaning corresponds to the position assigned to the reader in the puzzle game. The members of the police are also designed as schematic functional figures; Through the persistent groping of the police in the dark, the status of the detective as a lone fighter is enhanced; at the same time the author can use these figures to suggest incorrect conclusions to the reader.
The group of the non-investigating person is also functionally determined; The group of these people must be limited and manageable, made known to the reader at an early stage and remain constant in order to formally enable the above-mentioned correspondence of exposure and solution. Since the reader is not allowed to gain insight into the consciousness of the perpetrator and the other suspects before the dissolution, the characteristics of these figures can only be shown from the outside, but not psychologically illuminated. The rather flat character drawing of this group of figures in the classic detective stories is therefore also a consequence of the functional mechanisms of the genre.
The need to make the ensemble of characters manageable also results in structural necessities with regard to the choice of the setting and the milieu . A limited scope for action and a clearly defined and socially demarcated milieu prove to be useful; The popular limitation of the crime scene to the form of a closed, firmly locked room (locked room) is understandable against this background.
Genre history
Prototype model of the genre: The Detective Stories of Edgar Allan Poe
From the perspective of literary historical research and criticism, the three short stories written by Edgar Allan Poe The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841), The Mystery of Marie Rogêt and The Purloined Letter (1844) are generally seen as the first prototypical forms of detective history, which have a special one model-giving role in the genre of the genre.
In these narratives of Poe almost all constitutive components or system parts of the genre are already present, for example a mysterious, apparently inexplicable crime; a helpless police force; an eccentric, highly talented (private) detective; his friend and assistant as an admiring narrator; the locked room; the typical puzzle structure with the spread of all clues and the spectacular analytical denouement .
However, the overall structure of these Poe stories can still be clearly distinguished from the later classic detective story in several respects. For example, the alleged murder in The Murders in the Rue Morgue turns out to be an accident and not a planned act with a motive; likewise there is only one suspect who probably did not commit the crime. In The Purloined Letter , the culprit is known from the start; it is all about discovering the hiding place of the stolen letter so that it can be returned to its author. Although Poe's stories contain the three genre-typical components of the description of the case, the investigation and the resolution, they gain their tension in the relatively long resolution part less from guessing and more from understanding the ingenious thought processes of the detective. In the case of Poe, the focus is less on the thinking result than on the thinking process; accordingly, in The Murders in the Rue Morgue, the original version does not begin in the introduction with the presentation of the case, but with a seven-page theoretical treatise on analytical talent as such, which would hardly have been possible in later detective stories.
Schematization and expansion to a successful model of the genre: The Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle
In the further development of the Poesch prototype, Arthur Conan Doyle, who openly admitted to having been heavily influenced by Poe, succeeded in transforming the detective story into a real story of tension and surprise and thus making the genre a literary model of success. In doing so, Doyle achieved an efficacy of the structures shaped by Poe both by expanding and simplifying the Poesch pattern.
In contrast to Poe, in whose stories the solution of the case is primarily a mental process, Doyle consistently translates the resolution into visible results. In Doyle's numerous Sherlock Holmes stories , which appeared between 1887 and 1927, the plot is made much more exciting; there are more frequent changes of scene and more time pressure than with Poe. In Doyle's introductions, the dismay at the crime is usually expressed broadly; in the middle section the backward tension of dissolution of the mysterious crime is interwoven with a forward tension of conflict and threat. In the final part, too, Doyle is primarily concerned with the "presentation of an exciting present-day plot that takes precedence over the systematic answering of the puzzles".
Doyle also dispenses with an overly complex puzzle construction and theoretical foundation of the solution strategies; Instead of a rather brittle-looking, tract-like representation, there is predominantly a scenic narrative mode with the help of dialogues. The character world typical of the genre adopted by Poe is also expanded and simplified in the Sherlock Holmes stories.
Like Dupin, Holmes is an outsider who has both a scientifically rational and an artistically irrational side. Times of his detective work alternate with phases in which he plays the violin and consumes drugs. Unlike Dupin, Holmes has turned his hobby into a profession and is available to wealthy clients for a consulting fee; only destitute victims can use his services free of charge. Dupin, on the other hand, as an impoverished French nobleman, corresponded above all to the ideal of the American readers of the time for a French enlightenment spirit; He conducts his detective work as a pure amateur, who is ultimately concerned with perfecting the human mental powers.
Compared to his Poesche counterpart, Doyle's detective, with his lean figure, his distinctive profile, as well as his pipe and his cape, is a much more plastic or concretely imaginable figure; His companion Watson is also being developed further and, with his staidness or reliability, is more suitable as a figure of identification for (contemporary) readers than Dupin's confidante, who has no name or contour. With Doyles' concretization of the figures, however, a simplification or trivialization goes hand in hand; Holmes only solves his cases by carefully observing or measuring, but not by empathising with his opponent. Significantly, his knowledge is limited to the applied (natural) sciences; he understands nothing of philosophy or literature and is even less a poet or artist - neither does his occasional violin play or drug consumption change this.
In his Sherlock Holmes stories, Doyle uses not only the characteristics of Holmes and Watson in recurring form, but also certain patterns of action, non-investigative characters or locations. In doing so, he shapes the detective story into a fixed scheme, which is composed of the same components, but never becomes the same and thus boring due to the variation and repeatedly different composition of the parts. The degree of variation is adjusted by Doyle to different degrees on the various levels of character representation, locations, elements or courses of action; if only minor changes are found on one level, at least one other level is varied accordingly more.
The high degree of schematization in the Sherlock Holmes stories is evident not only in the limited repertoire of stenciled characters, but also in the plot elements and locations; The weapons of the crime, clues or red herrings are more varied to a greater extent . Only in late stories, in which the preferred narrative perspective from Watson's point of view is changed, does Doyle sometimes deviate from the prefabricated schematic framework in a way that seems to break down genre-specific boundaries.
Variation of the genre scheme: The Father Brown stories by GK Chesterton
The variation character of the Sherlock Holmes stories created by Doyle ensured that during the "golden age" of detective history in the years between 1890 and 1920 little new emerged in his successor. A change in the milieu or a sharper drawing of the extraordinary characteristics of the character Holmes was enough to perpetuate the genre's success pattern in the many increasingly popular stories published in literary magazines.
It was not until Gilbert Keith Chesterton , who had previously made a name for himself outside of the detective story as a man of letters in his novels, short stories and essays, who succeeded from 1911 with his fifty Father Brown stories to set new accents in the further development of the genre without doing anything however, to leave the framework set by Doyle fundamentally.
Chesterton's stories are primarily distinguished by their detective, the Catholic priest Father Brown. With regard to its appearance, its methods of investigation and its ideological principles, this is designed in almost any form as a direct counterpart to Sherlock Holmes.
While Holmes appears as a tall, lean figure with a distinctive profile, Father Brown is described as short and plump; his face remains expressionless. In contrast to Holmes, who usually solves his cases as a rational analyst through an exact reconstruction of the course of events, Father Brown relies on his knowledge of human nature and the ability to understand his thoughts and ideas on the background of his experience as a confessor in the investigation To be able to empathize with the criminal's emotional world. Interestingly, Chesterton returns to the core of an investigation principle that Dupin used in a similar form in Poesch's detective stories.
The otherness of the Father Brown stories can also be seen in their sophisticated style, which is characterized by the frequent use of paradoxes and pointed formulations. There are also new, more demanding topics, for example the question of religiosity, theological issues or ethical problems. The crime is viewed primarily from the point of view of sin and not primarily as a scandal or violation of convention; Occasionally the issue of inequality between social classes and the distribution of wealth is even discussed.
In contrast to Poe and Doyle, Chesterton also chooses an authorial narrative perspective in his detective stories , which allows him to focus on characters other than the detective over a longer period of time; in doing so he anticipates a later tendency of the genre.
Complication of the puzzle structure: the detective stories of Agatha Christie
The scheme of the classic detective story undergoes a more far-reaching transformation than through the changes in Chesterton through the stories of Agatha Christie with her well-known main characters Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple . Christie's innovative strength lies less in the modifications of these two detective characters: the eccentric fanatic of order Poirot investigates with strict logic and, as a detective figure, is clearly in the tradition of Dupin and Holmes, while Miss Marple as an investigative figure who solves her cases with an understanding of human nature Father Brown's tradition continues.
Christie's great merit with regard to the further development of the genre is rather to increase the tension and surprise as essential functional mechanisms of the detective story by expanding and considerably complicating the core element of the genre, the puzzle structure.
Agathie Christie achieves this complication of the puzzle structure in her detective narratives above all by abandoning the previously applicable limitation rules and significantly increasing the number of suspects and suspects. With the crime, Christie also introduces a much larger ensemble of characters than before, in order to increase the number of suspects.
At the same time, further secondary secrets are assigned to the various characters, for example forbidden love relationships or fraud. Such or other crimes are just as concealed and covered up as the motives and backgrounds of the actual crime, now almost without exception a murder. With this novel narrative strategy, Agatha Christie succeeds in increasing the number of pausable suspicions and thus making the resolution of the cases more exciting.
The puzzle game is set by Agatha Christie in most of her stories in the social circles of the gentry . It is less about the representation of an "ideal world", as was assumed by many early critics of the detective literature. According to Suerbaum, the gentry class primarily provides an ideal background for Christie's expansion and complication of the puzzle structure. Social contacts between members of this class tend to be formal and superficial; they often hide their real face behind a mask and have to struggle with identity problems, so that despite the frequent occurrence of appearances and pretenses ( "pretense, disguise, play-acting, and outward show" ) the plausibility of the stories in this milieu is maintained .
With regard to the figure drawings and locations as well as the course of action and narrative perspectives, Agathie Christie shows a comparatively large variation and willingness to experiment; sometimes it blatantly violates the limitation rules of the genre, especially in the area of the course of action, which Doyle and Chesterton always observed. However, since this is known to her readers and included in the expectation horizon from the start , Agatha Christie is able to further increase the tension and make the otherwise difficult-to-fill middle section of a detective story entertaining.
In the stories of Agatha Christie, these extensions of the genre scheme also show the way for the subsequent lengthening and expansion of the detective story into a classic detective novel , which is based on the structure of the short story .
literature
- Daniel Grunwald: Methods of obscuring solutions in detective stories and novels. Bod, Norderstedt 2003, ISBN 3-8334-0321-7 .
- Sven Strasen, Peter Wenzel: The detective story in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In: Arno Löffler, Eberhard Späth (Hrsg.): History of the English short story. Francke Verlag, Tübingen and Basel 2005, ISBN 3-7720-3370-9 , pp. 84-105.
swell
- Günter Lange: Crime - Analysis of a Genre. In: Petra Josting, Gudrun Stenzel (ed.): On the hot trail in all media. Children's and youth crime stories to read, hear, see and click. Weinheim, Munich 2002, p. 7.
- Jochen Vogt (ed.): The crime novel. Poetics, theory, history. UTB 8147. Fink, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-8252-8147-7 , pp. 52-57.
- Gero von Wilpert : Subject dictionary of literature (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 231). 7th, improved and enlarged edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-520-23107-7 , pp. 175-177.
Web links
- British Detective Fiction in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries - Article by Anne Humpherys in the Oxford Research Encyclopedias - Literature from June 2017
Individual evidence
- ↑ See Sven Strasen, Peter Wenzel: The detective story in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Pp. 84 and 86.
- ↑ See Sven Strasen, Peter Wenzel: The detective story in the 19th and early 20th centuries. P. 85. See also Anne Humpherys: British Detective Fiction in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries. In: Oxford Research Encyclopedias - Literature , published online in June 2017 under [1] . Retrieved August 4, 2019. See also the section Poe, the Detective Story, and Science Fiction in Thomas Wright: Poe, Edgar Allan. In: Oxford Research Encyclopedias - Literature , published online in July 2017 under [2] . Retrieved March 10, 2018.
- ↑ See Sven Strasen, Peter Wenzel: The detective story in the 19th and early 20th centuries. P. 84.
- ↑ See Sven Strasen, Peter Wenzel: The detective story in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Pp. 87-89.
- ↑ See Sven Strasen, Peter Wenzel: The detective story in the 19th and early 20th centuries. P. 87.
- ↑ See Sven Strasen, Peter Wenzel: The detective story in the 19th and early 20th centuries. P. 89f.
- ↑ See Sven Strasen, Peter Wenzel: The detective story in the 19th and early 20th centuries. P. 90.
- ↑ See Sven Strasen, Peter Wenzel: The detective story in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Pp. 91-94. See also Paul Gerhard Buchloh : Edgar Allan Poe · The Murders in the Rue Morgue. In: Karl Heinz Göller u. a. (Ed.): The American Short Story . August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , pp. 94-102, here pp. 95f. and 98-101.
- ↑ Ulrich Suerbaum: Krimi: An analysis of the genre. Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-15-010331-2 , p. 64. See also Sven Strasen, Peter Wenzel: The detective story in the 19th and early 20th centuries. P. 95f.
- ↑ See Paul Gerhard Buchloh: Edgar Allan Poe The Murders in the Rue Morgue. In: Karl Heinz Göller u. a. (Ed.): The American Short Story . August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , pp. 94-102, here pp. 96 and 99f. See also Sven Strasen, Peter Wenzel: The detective story in the 19th and early 20th centuries. P. 96.
- ↑ See Sven Strasen, Peter Wenzel: The detective story in the 19th and early 20th centuries. P. 96f.
- ↑ See Ulrich Suerbaum: Krimi: An analysis of the genre. Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-15-010331-2 , pp. 70f. See also Sven Strasen, Peter Wenzel: The detective story in the 19th and early 20th centuries. P. 98.
- ↑ See Ulrich Suerbaum: Krimi: An analysis of the genre. Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-15-010331-2 , pp. 71 and 73. According to Suerbaum, Chesterton, who later converted to the Catholic faith, was also concerned with creating the figure of Father Brown in the Protestant or to arouse sympathy for the Catholic Church in anti-Catholic England with the “sober and humane common sense ” of Father Brown. See also Sven Strasen, Peter Wenzel: The detective story in the 19th and early 20th centuries. P. 98.
- ↑ Sven Strasen, Peter Wenzel: The detective story in the 19th and early 20th centuries. P. 98. Strasen and Wenzel refer here to Martin Priestman: Detective Fiction and Literature: The Figure on the Carpet . Macmillan Verlag, London and Basingstoke 1990, pp. 123 and 125.
- ↑ See Ulrich Suerbaum: Krimi: An analysis of the genre. Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-15-010331-2 , pp. 793f. See also Sven Strasen, Peter Wenzel: The detective story in the 19th and early 20th centuries. P. 99.
- ↑ See Sven Strasen, Peter Wenzel: The detective story in the 19th and early 20th centuries. P. 99f. Strasen and Wenzel refer here to the analyzes by Nicholas Birns and Margaret Boe Birns: "Agatha Christie: Modern and Modernist" . In: Ronald G. Walker, June M. Frazer (Eds.): The Cunning Craft: Original Essays on Detective Fiction and Contemporary Literary Theory. Western Illinois University Press, Macomb 1990, pp. 122ff.
- ↑ See Sven Strasen, Peter Wenzel: The detective story in the 19th and early 20th centuries. P. 100.