"Witty, wryly humorous and fast-paced, "The Life and Crimes of Harry
Lavender" is a thriller with a twist which brilliantly evokes the sleaze below the surface of the city's glittering faade". Is this what the novel is about?
Marele Day's novel, "The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender" explores a large scope of issues related to crime and mystery writing. The use of simple language, symbolism, clever wit and a certain sense of satirical mockery all contribute to composing this witty, wryly humorous and fast paced novel. Through the way in which Day portrays the protagonist, Claudia Valentine, she challenges the stereotypes and ideas set in the readers' minds, in relation to gender issues. Day also succeeds to ruthlessly unmask
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She shows a female character doing what previously only men had done; directly committing herself to the criminal underworld, walking dangerous streets at night, boldly trespassing into perilous areas and defending herself- all the things that only men would do in conventional versions of the genre.
On the very first page, Day introduces this concept of ironic mockery by creating confusion as to the gender of the character. A tough voice that fills the requirements of hard-boiled school men is established, and only after turning the page does the reader realize that the terribly hung-over narrator is a female private-eye and the blonde in the bed is a good-looking male.
The novel is set in Sydney. Day represents the city form two different views. One is Claudia's safe, sheltered Sydneyof innocent childhood,
"Cars sat in the sun silently absorbing the heat, reminding me of childhood summers. Days at the beach and before you went home all the doors of the car would be flung open and the heat that rushed out nearly knocked you over."
The reader soon discovers it to simply be a faade that blinds us from seeing the seedy, savage and corrupted undertones of a world which very few are aware of. This other side is associated with Harry
Lavender, who is slowly infiltrating all of society like cancer slowly invades a healthy human body. On several occasions Claudia reinforces
the
When Gayle Wald wrote, “Sayers’s career writing detective stories effectively ends with Gaudy Night” (108), she did not present a new argument, but continued the tradition that Gaudy Night does not center on the detective story. Barbara Harrison even labeled Dorothy Sayers’s Lord Peter/Harriet Vane books, Strong Poison, Gaudy Night, and Busman’s Honeymoon, as “deliriously happy-ending romances” (66). The label stretches the definition of a romance, but Gaudy Night indeed has very little to do with crime. Sayers encrypted the real story within her detective novel. This story behind the story narrates love and human relationships. In fact, the crimes in Gaudy Night only supply a convenient way for
The Holocaust was the most horrific time that man has known. To survive this atrocity, the Holocaust victims man upon man atrocity, one had to summon bravery, strength, courage, and wisdom that many did not know they possessed. One survivor is Elie Wiesel, whose exquisite writings have revealed the world of horror suffered by the Jewish people. Elie Wiesel's statement, "...to remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all..." stands as a succinct summary of his views on life and serves as the driving force of his work.
The characterisation of Harry Flowers illustrates the dark side of humanity through his evil, manipulative and dishonest behaviour. Harry lacks any real sense of morality. shows no remorse for his actions as he is able to escape any real punishment for the damage done to the Jerome house and to Karen Jerome. When harry explains to Buddy how he managed to escape the consequences for his actions he says “thought they could throw the book at me. Breaking and entering. Malicious damage to property. Assaulting the girl. But as it turns out they had to forget most of the charges. No breaking and entering, no assaulting the girl. That only left them with damage to property” (pg.107). Through the use of listing and truncated sentences Cormier depicts harry as a morally bankrupt character, through which the darker side of humanity is explored by characterizing Harry’s behavior to be
Firstly, the secondary characters develop the theme by supporting one constant notion in which women are inferior and submissive. The temporal setting is in the late 1940s, after World War I; a time period in which sexism was widely accepted. This prejudice is introduced to the narrator, a young girl, very early on when a businessman commends her for her physical labor, saying “I thought it was only a girl” (4). When
When reading Mrs Dalloway, it is inevitable to get caught in the moment of action. Through her words, every reader gets to seen the city, the people, the places, the stores as every character does. The writer has now the power of controlling our thoughts and
Lastly, feminism is viewed in The Body in the Library. The detective, Jane Marple is the one who figures out the answer the question of who is the murderer. Agatha Christie creates this book to be more women friendly with more feministic views than some of Christie’s other books. One
Critically assess Judith Butler’s notion that gender is not a primary category, but an attribute, a set of secondary narrative effects. Your answer should make reference to Sally Potter’s film Orlando.
The Victorian society in which this novel takes place sets us idealized versions of the woman that Edna Pontellier should be. (Madame Ratignolle, Ms. Reisz, the lovers, the woman in black.)
Throughout history, it has generally been accepted that women are of a lesser standard than that of their male counterparts. There has always been an opposition to this theory that believes that the reverse is true, or at the very least, that the sexes are equal. While some authors place women within their works solely as a filler character, or as support of their male lead, there are some that have written with the intent of the females offering a distinctive viewpoint than that of what the readers might be used to. The roles of women in literature have never been forced to be monotonous, yet that’s how they’ve been perceived. However, there are examples of female characters who have been written with the express purpose of breaking that
The Awakening is a Victorian novel written by Kate Chopin in 1899, which is set in Grand Isle and in New Orleans. Unlike many of other Victorian novels, The Awakening presents a very peculiar view that no one dared to even think about during the 19th century: the empowerment of women. Through this novel, Chopin voices out the freedom for women from their domestic restrictions and sexist Victorian gender roles. Surely, this book highly controversial and was even censored at the time, later, it was known to accurately represent 19th century feminist ideals and, at the same time, challenge the norms of the Victorian era in the USA.
The main character’s name is Artemis Fowl. He has dark hair and pale skin. He is twelve years old. His family is very rich and live in a large house, and Artemis lives with his mom, (who has been acting very strange since Artemis’ dad died.) and his two servants, Butler and Juliet. At the beginning of the book, Artemis is mainly focused on getting even richer than he already was. After he kidnapped a fairy though, he realized that he had something he wanted more than riches. He wanted his mom to go back to her normal self, not grieving over the loss of her husband. Artemis Fowl was very cruel in the book, wanted nothing other than fame and money, and he would do anything to get those. He bribed people to give him information by giving them
Valentine's Day is coming up and in celebration, Jane Steward is planning a Romancing the Reader program at Storyton. Jane has invited of the top Regency period writers to come and discuss their genre with their readers. Roseamund York, a best selling romance author has irritated almost everyone from the time that she stepped out of the car that brought her to Storyton Hall. So when her body is found early one morning, hardly a tear was shed, but Jane, always ready for a challenge begins her own investigation and uses the resources of her security staff to help the police find the murderer.
In the simplest terms, this novel can be described as the two-part story of Humbert Humbert’s relationship with Lolita. In Part 1 he addresses her as his property and takes her, and in Part 2 he loses her. Humbert follows a journey of growing insanity, which eventually leads him to murder. The motivating desire shifts from his lust, and his sexual relations with Lolita in the first half, to manslaughter in the second. The two are complete opposites: one gives life, the other takes it. I find it ironic that the reason Humbert is initially arrested is not for the murder of Clare Quilty, or his illegal relations with Lolita, but for speeding and running a red light. However, Humbert believes his only crime was raping Lolita and accepts full
Jane Austen is an author who sticks to her own established tropes across many of her novels. Time and time again one can encounter the same sorts of characters and similar situations in her novel. But Mansfield Park and Emma are two novels that tend to stand out against Austen’s others – and what makes them stand out is not so much a departure from her pre-established tropes, but a deeper insight into them. In examining these two novels, one might think that the only similarity between them is the way Austen turns her own tropes on their heads. On the one hand Mansfield Park is possibly Austen’s darkest novel, featuring a desperately oppressed heroine whom readers have found hard to like. On the other hand Emma is a lively novel full of hilariously ridiculous missteps and a heroine who wields all the power necessary to cause those missteps. Yet they do have other things in common. For instance, both examine themes of isolation and issues of a small community, and in both novels, day trips and journeys serve to perpetuate that isolation, rather than relieve it.
Every author has a characteristic and unique style. It is interesting to analyze how each author approaches the different problematics and personal feelings and struggles that their characters have to deal with all throughout their novels. The secret agent and Saturday night Sunday morning both address the issues of anarchy, masculinity, femininity and heterosexual relationships but in different time periods. The secret agent is a pre-war work while on the other hand, Saturday night Sunday morning is a post-war novel, which makes it interesting to compare and contrast the character’s attitude and their beliefs in relation to these topics in both novels. It is also interesting to analyze how the personal issues faced by the characters intersect with the contemporary issues that society was facing during the time period in which the novel takes place.