Unique Qualities Enhance Detective Novels

Mrs. Danvers treasured Rebecca and tried everything in her ability to keep her in memory, and respect her. Mrs. Danvers periodically tidied her room and cleaned it. She disliked Mrs. de Winter. Mrs. Danvers tries to get Mrs. de Winter to commit suicide, by trying to convince her, due to their differences and how they dislike each other.

Rebecca has been a popular gothic romance novel. The plot is traditional: A young woman, the protagonist, ends up in a foreign setting, and must win the heart of a striking man while piecing together a mystery. Also, typically in gothic fashion, the weather will mirror the characters’ moods. An example of this is when Maxim kills Rebecca the same night of a terrible storm.

Detective fiction is a relatively young genre of literature: “The idea that crime … provided entertainment was only born in the first decades of the nineteenth century, but it would bloom into one of the greatest mass-media interests of all time” (Worsley 17, italics in the original). In spite of its youthfulness, this genre has already developed its own rules and regulations/conventions, as well as established its own canon.

Rebecca for her part, if her promiscuity and her “incapability to love” are to be believed, is insane as she rejects societal expectations. Rebecca hated the expectations Maxim expected her to follow, and unlike the narrator, Rebecca rejects submissiveness and in doing so rejects the male dominated society she was oppressed by, which consequently gave grounds for her to be considered insane. It can be viewed that Bertha’s entrapment in the attic has the same purpose as Rebecca’s murder - to silence subordinate women. Additionally, similar to the fires in Jane Eyre and Wide

There are many examples of gothic elements in Rebecca. The most prominent is the setting of the novel. The novel is set at Manderley, which is a fictional estate in England. The elements of a castle, sinister surroundings, and extreme landscapes are all evident in the novel.

The first novel we read for this course was a detective novel titled Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett. Personally this has been my favorite detective novel that we have read so far. But when reading Red Harvest some may question, “what makes it a true detective story?” After doing some investigating I have found the ultimate guide to what makes detective novels, true detective novels. In order to relate these characteristics to the novel I first need to identify what some of the characteristics are: “The novel must have at most one detective and one criminal, and at least one victim (a corpse)”, “Love has no place in detective fiction”, and lastly “There is no place for descriptions nor for psychological analyses” (Todorov).

He manipulates new Mrs. De Winter by keeping his past hidden from her, while on other side Mrs. Danvers manipulates Mrs. de winter and constantly reminds about Rebecca. Mrs. Danvers keep describing how Rebecca ran house when she was alive. Therefore, Rebecca is with falsifications, characters are selfish and just want to complete their own purpose. For instance, Mrs. Danvers just want revenge from Mrs. De Winter and thus, encourage her to commit suicide. On other hand, when truth was revealed to narrator, she was relieved that her husband never loved Rebecca rather than caring that he is a

Edgar Allen Poe and Agatha Christie are pioneers of the detective genre who both used the shared conventions of classical detective – ethos of a supreme detective and false suspect – to help create an enticing detective story. To establish the ethos of a supreme detective, the narrator, customarily a sidekick, describes the detective as an outlier who has superb analytical thinking skills, does not emotionally get attached to a case, and always solves the case. In addition to giving the detective a godly stature, it is typical in amateur detective stories to see a false suspect be blamed for a crime he or she did not commit. Agatha Christie advances the classical detective subgenre by progressively revealing in “The Witness of the Prosecution”

William W. Stowe continues to create an understanding of the genre where “Detective fiction tends to affirm rather than question, to take social structures, moral codes and ways of knowing the given, rather than subjecting them to thorough, principled criticism. In detective fiction, crime is usually seen as a personal evil rather than a social injustice and the detective is depicted as an ideal incarnation of competitive individualism… the truth although elusive, is ultimately

The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett both exemplify classic detective stories. With secrets and red herrings behind every corner, Sam Spade and Sherlock Holmes try to pinpoint a culprit and solve a case. However, their stories become more complicated when their own secrets are thrown into the mix. When it comes murder, everyone has something to hide, and anyone could be guilty of committing the crime. Even the motives and actions of the story’s “heroes” are called into question. In this paper, I will explore how everyone--from the detectives to the victims--has something to hide, and why this makes interactions and criminal cases so intriguing.

No matter what characters women play, writers often find a way to integrate female sex appeal into their qualities . This is prominent in detective fiction, especially with the concept of the femme fatale. Susan Hayward in “Film Noir,” describes the femme fatale as being “active, intelligent, powerful, dominant and in charge of her own sexuality” (Hayward 151). In the Maltese Falcon and the BBC adaptation “A Scandal in Belgravia,” two female characters, the femme fatales, are unnecessarily sexualized throughout both stories. Brigid O’Shaughnessy and Irene Adler are portrayed as being manipulative tricksters. The writers give these women two choices, to use their sexuality or have their sexuality be used. Throughout the Maltese Falcon, Brigid is defined by her sexuality and the effect it has on Sam Spade while in “A Scandal in Bohemia,” Irene uses her sexuality to define herself and affect Sherlock in the story. For these women, in order for them to be seen as powerful, intelligent, and even

In Rebecca ominous settings, mysterious secrets, and character’s extreme duress contributed to the gothic theme.

The entire sequence is shot in Rebecca’s shack, which is dark and musty, and there is little light coming from the windows because of the rainy weather. This brings focus and light to only the two main characters in the room and the area that Rebecca walked through before she died, making the rest of the room dark and mysterious; fulfilling the high-contrast mise-en-scène.On the other hand, one can also argue that the film is based on a rhetorical theme in relation to the ways in which Mrs. De Winter strives to gain equal rights. The film represents women and feminism in some unique ways. As an example, the film shows that women are a romantic entertainer, but the issue they have is that they break away from responsibilities at home and with the

After reading the novel Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier, you get an image of the narrator as very plain with no sense of style. Just as you get a vision of Mrs. Danvers as very skinny and almost witch like. However, this wasn’t the case. In the film the narrator is portrayed as a thin woman with pretty and lovely curled hair. Mrs. Danvers however, seems more scary due to her showing no type of emotion on her face at any time during the film.

'That was the evidence itself . . . .' and talks like this for the