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The Golden Age Of Detective Fiction Analysis

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DETECTIVE FICTION “ The term ‘Golden Age’ stands for a particular blessed era of crime writing” – Susan Rowland. Golden Age of Detective fiction is regarded as the period between World Wars I and II, an era of classic murder mystery novels of similar patterns and styles, predominantly in the 1920s and 1930s; however, classic novels had been written since 1911 and still, are being written. Most of the Golden Age writers are British, however, in America the genre of ‘Hard-Boiled’ fiction is dominant. In this age, the major theme is ‘whodunit’ or the ‘clue puzzles’ in which the reader solves the mystery of a codified game. Golden Age of Detective Fiction was preceded by an age, which began with Sir Arthur Canon Doyle’s set of short mystery stories …show more content…

These mystery stories are apart from the reality. The Realists, unlike the Intuitionists, presents the text as realistic as possible, Dorothy L. Sayers, an English author is one of the most famous writers of this sub-genre and wrote ‘Lord Peter Wimsey’ and another eleven novels and two sets of the short stories. The Realist works with the physical evidence such as footprints, bullet holes, and other forensic or measurable evidence, however, the Intuitionists with the exercise of minds. Therefore, Crime Fiction is not static, each of these sub-genres within The Golden Age holds its basic conventions of the establishment. The Golden Age texts follow a common thing which is a mystery and along with that there are conventions of the classical mystery texts: • The reader must have a fair and an equal opportunity to guess the criminal or to solve the ‘clue puzzle’. The reader has to be provided with all the clues and hints, as the ‘sidekick ‘or the companion of the detective cannot hide his/her thoughts from the readers, there should be a transparency in the …show more content…

The authors of the Golden Age shows their faith and belief in the detectives (emphatically vulnerable detectives). The detectives in these stories dominate the plot and solve the mystery case by influencing the perspective of the reader. The detectives mostly are self-conscious and Golden Age does not expect the reader to solve the crime ahead of the detective. They are decidedly unaggressive, non-god like, nondominant and do not exude ‘macho-like’ qualities of a ‘real he-man’. In the Detective Fiction, detectives fall into three broad categories; amateurs, private investigators, and the professional police. In the Golden Age, amateurs are the supreme category. Martin Edwards said “ Originally, detectives tended to be memorable for their eccentricities; now the emphasis is on in depth characterization. The field has become crowded, with many detectives of many different kinds operating in a wide variety of places and

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