Detective Fiction Reinvention and Didacticism in G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown Clifford James Stumme Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Master of English College of Arts and Science Liberty University Stumme 2 Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................................3 Chapter 1: Introduction ....................................................................................................................4 Historical and Autobiographical Context ....................................................................................6 Detective Fiction’s Development ..............................................................................................10 Chesterton, Detective Fiction, and Father Brown ......................................................................21 Chapter 2: Paradox as a Mode for Meaning ..................................................................................32 Solution Revealing Paradox .......................................................................................................34 Plot Progressing Paradox ...........................................................................................................38 Truth Revealing Paradox ...........................................................................................................41 Chapter 3: Opposition in Character and Ideology .........................................................................49 Symbolic Characters ..................................................................................................................52 Direct Binaries ...........................................................................................................................57 Reconciled Binaries ...................................................................................................................62 Chapter 4: Reimagining the Ratiocinative Detective .....................................................................69 The Detective as Priest...............................................................................................................72 The Detective as Philosopher-Psychologist ...............................................................................79 The Detective as Reformer ........................................................................................................84 Chapter 5: Conclusion....................................................................................................................93 Works Cited ...................................................................................................................................98 Stumme 3 Abstract In the Father Brown stories, G. K. Chesterton reengineers the classic detective story so that it can be a vehicle for didactic messages. Through a rethinking of mysteries, a repurposing of secondary characters, and a subversion of Holmsean-type detectives, Chesterton is able to insert philosophic ideas into his stories while still entertaining readers. Differing from earlier detective stories, the Father Brown mysteries showcase an acceptance of the spiritual and a natural empathy for all characters whether criminal or no. In my research, I show how, through these stories, Chesterton posits messages that are new to the mystery genre and how he is able to leave an indelible mark on the most basic assumptions of detective fiction. Stumme 4 Chapter 1: Introduction G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown detective stories stand above all other detective stories because they purport to come from beneath them. One of the great paradoxes of Chesterton’s literary career, fifty-two short stories about a Roman Catholic priest detective, written between 1909 and 1936, found hidden purpose and meaning in a genre that otherwise might have remained mere entertainment and of little literary value. When Chesterton began writing his Father Brown stories, the genre was still young but already grounded in its own tradition, Edgar Allan Poe having inaugurated it in 1841 with his first C. Auguste Dupin story and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle having brought it to an early climax with Sherlock Holmes’s first appearance in 1887. The genre was prominent into and past the early 1900s, serving as a form of popular literary entertainment, spread by the rise of journalism and periodicals which gave the short stories a medium that could reach large audiences. To be enticing to a large audience and to fit into newspapers and magazines, detective fiction stories had to be able to be read quickly and to deliver a satisfying ending; their plots were entertaining and often forgotten quickly. Considering the expansion of the genre and the excitement surrounding Doyle’s much-loved Holmes, the genre seemed to be a wild success. But at the same time that the stories were convenient, most were not memorable. The stories that were easily accessible often had no themes of lasting consequence that made them worth accessing for reasons besides entertainment. The genre served largely to divert, but did little else interesting or helpful, a fact acknowledged by scholars’ common assent to its unworthiness of serious study. Detective stories’ common lack of serious themes stems from its typically black-and- white view of morality and justice. Amid what sometimes amounts to a host of stock characters, criminals pose seemingly insolvable puzzles to the heroes and readers, and then, when the Stumme 5 detective or the police defeat the criminal, they dutifully expel the criminal from society, whether through hanging, prison, or exile—leaving civilization once more safe from disruption. The reader is expected to assume that the government, police force, and detective are trustworthy and should not be questioned. The criminal is always in the wrong and must be discovered and defeated by the detective and reader. Non-villainous stock characters serve as suspects, victims, antagonistic innocents, or accomplices; their purpose often is to act as hindrances to society’s self-protecting justice, serving as distractions from the criminal’s true identity. Once that identity is found out, based on the evidence, and the criminal is caught, society can maintain its just and moral equilibrium. The detective, by using the physical materials afforded him logically deduces the identity of his prey and saves the day. The traditional detective story is a vehicle for one very simply philosophical meaning; as Chene Heady says in “The Many Identities of GKC,” “It is the perfect narrative expression of a scientism which assumes that only the material sciences can ascribe meaning to our lives or unlock reality as a whole . .” (n. pag.). In much of detective fiction, reality is relegated to being a mere puzzle. If the detective can understand the pieces of the mystery, he or she can understand its whole. There is nothing mystical, spiritual, or unnatural about how the world works. Everything can be explained. Detective fiction serves as a vehicle for materialistic themes because it stresses dependence on the tangible to understand the true. And because there is always only one way to understand a case, detective fiction initially was a very specific, narrow genre—few good ways to write it existed and every story in the genre had to have the same satisfying denouement of a solved puzzle. Describing this formula, Ellery Queen, a detective fiction writer, claims, “[A] pure detective story must have a detective who detects, who is the story’s protagonist, and who triumphs over the criminal” (qtd. in Ashley, Robert P. 48). The emphasis here is on detection—compiling clues—and defeating the criminal Stumme 6 to restore peace to a society that is temporarily under attack from within. If someone bought and read a detective story, they could depend on these characteristics. While Chesterton’s Father Brown stories do fit these standards, Chesterton seems to have cared far less for genre standards than detective fiction writers before him, writing stories and creating a character that denies one basic, traditional assumption of the genre: the material world is all that exists. Once his readers let go of this premise, Chesterton opens the genre to a host of story and theme possibilities. For instance, where Holmes solves paradoxical crimes by denying false clues, Father Brown uses a spiritual understanding of paradox to solve crimes. Where formerly one-dimensional secondary characters abound, Chesterton gives them didactic purpose by using them to spread philosophical or theological messages. And in a genre that treats criminals as problems to be solved and enemies to be outwitted, Chesterton urges that criminals be understood personally and empathetically, treated as equals—understood and not simply defeated. Changes like these— ways that Chesterton openly challenges the genre or repurposes it—show the Father Brown stories to be an experimental and innovative play on the detective fiction short story form. Chesterton is successful in this interpretation because while he enhances the genre with the addition of didactic themes, he still manages to keep his stories entertaining. He follows the rules of detective fiction enough that he can accomplish these two things: he entertains while he teaches, elevating the literary possibilities of detective fiction. Historical and Autobiographical Context Because Chesterton’s life and writings are often