Bachelor's Diploma Thesis
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Masarykova univerzita Filozofická fakulta Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky Bakalářská diplomová práce Kateřina Adamcová Kateřina 2013 Kateřina Adamcová 2013 2013 Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Kateřina Adamcová The Strange Case of Mr Ian Rankin and Detective Inspector John Rebus Bachelor‟s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph. D. 2013 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author‟s signature Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor, Stephen Hardy, Ph.D., for his valuable advice and encouragement. I would also like to thank to my family for their loving support throughout my studies. And most of all I would like to thank Mr Ian Rankin for his company as well as for creation of John Rebus. I have enjoyed all his books with great pleasure and enthusiasm. Table of Contents Table of Contents ...................................................................................................................... 5 Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 6 1 „Rankin`s Development of the Literary Genre and the “Birth” of DI John Rebus‟ ...................................................................................................................................... 10 1.1 Scottish Fiction ........................................................................................................... 10 1.2 The Detective Novel .................................................................................................. 11 1.3 The Gothic Novel ....................................................................................................... 12 1.4 Rankin`s Biography, the Inspiration and the Creation of Rebus ............................... 14 2 Chapter Two: Rebus`s Character and a Style Analysis of ‘Knots and Crosses’ ........ 20 3 Chapter Three: The Breakpoints in ‘The Hanging Garden’ ....................................... 32 4 Chapter Four: The Closed Circle and Rebus`s Destiny in „Exit Music’ ..................... 40 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 47 Works Cited ............................................................................................................................. 50 Summary .................................................................................................................................. 52 Resumé ..................................................................................................................................... 54 5 Introduction “You must suffer me, to go my own dark way.” R. L. Stevenson “Fiction after all, can sometimes tell the truth the real world can´t.” I. Rankin This bachelor thesis is entitled “The strange Case of Mr Ian Rankin and Detective Inspector John Rebus” and it is based on works written by Ian Rankin, a modern Scottish writer and a creator of a new literary genre called “Scottish Mystery Crime Fiction.” Most of all, it focuses on the series of books about his iconic character Detective Inspector John Rebus, although it only concentrates on three of the series of novels; Knots and Crosses, The Hanging Garden and Exit Music. The books are chosen due to the pattern of Rebus`s “life” stages, his creation, life struggles and retirement. Rankin`s books are compiled according to a specific writing strategy, which forms a modern version of the Jekyll and Hyde story. Although Stevenson`s original novel is situated in London and based on the real historical figure of Deacon Brodie from Edinburgh, Rankin wanted to restore his fictional protagonist to Edinburgh, a city to which he is well suited. (Bruce-Gardyne, “Ian Rankin`s Edinburgh” The Daily Telegraph) Moreover, the thesis attempts to prove the hypothesis that the structure is based on the style of gothic novels and dark fiction, influenced by the works by Robert Louis Stevenson and his The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, John Hoggs and his The Confession of a Justified Sinner, the mystery fiction of Muriel Spark with her The Pride of Miss Jean Brodie, The Driver`s Seat and The Ballad of the Peckham Rye, and the detective fiction novels by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his Sherlock Holmes series. The influence is recorded and provided by articles in The Norton Anthology of British Literature, Oxford Guide to British and American Culture, Crime Fiction 6 written by John Scaggs, and Thorne`s An Outline of English Literature. Stevenson`s work pervades all the Rebus novels, starting with Knots and Crosses published in 1987 and finishing 20 years later with Exit Music, published in 2007. The whole series is summarized and explained in the book Rebus`s Scotland, published in 2008, which is a useful source for this thesis because it includes the writer`s attitude. The thesis provides the reader with a classification of Rankin`s writing genre and his biography, and it also explains the inspiration for the creation of John Rebus. Most of all, the thesis not only looks closely at Rankin`s approach to the character of Detective Inspector John Rebus in the context of modern urban Edinburgh in a selection of his novels but it also analyses Rebus`s character based on a comparison with the writer. The evidence is generally dependent on references in selected newspaper articles from, for example, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail and others, due to the fact that relatively little has been produced in the way of monographs. The first aim of the thesis is to classify Rankin`s literary genre according to the aspects of detective, gothic and mystery fiction novels. It defines the techniques and describes their basic elements. Besides, it explains the connection with the literary and cultural group Tartan Noir and includes its description. The purpose is to analyse Rankin`s style of writing and to support it with examples taken from the specification of the literary genres. The second objective is to introduce Rankin`s biography to the reader, with personal events, interests and experiences that influenced his work. This section also provides details connected with the creation of DI Rebus and considers all the aspects of the combined genres, such as settings, pre-requisities and tone. Rankin intended to create a fictional world with a character located in contemporary Edinburgh, on whom he would project real problematic issues of Scotland. Therefore, Detective Inspector 7 John Rebus is not only an iconic character of a literary genre, but also a provider of reality. Moreover Rankin also projects himself into Rebus in several moments. The third aim is to concentrate on the comparison of the writer with his character, which is emphasized not merely in the chapters, but also in the conclusion. In this part Rankin`s real and Rebus`s fictional lives are linked together. The thesis is divided into four chapters after the introduction, and into several subchapters. The first chapter introduces Ian Rankin, in the context of the Scottish literary world, as a developer of a new style of writing which gave Scottish fiction a new direction. Rankin`s genre has been combined from aspects of detective crime fiction novels and elements of mysterious and gothic novels, emphasizing the most important aspect of “dualism”. All the structural claims are provided against a background of the modern urban character of Edinburgh and could generally be described as “Scottish Mystery Crime Fiction Novels”. These novels became the main element of the cultural group “Tartan Noir”. The second aim of this chapter is to highlight the most important examples of the influence and inspiration from Rankin`s life which led to the “birth” of DI Rebus, and to explain why Rankin chose Edinburgh for his literary plot setting. The second chapter intends to introduce Detective Inspector John Rebus in his first performance in the book Knots and Crosses, and it attempts to prove the derived aspects of the literary genre in use, applied on a story from the real Edinburgh. Moreover, it provides the reader with a real insight into who John Rebus is. It contains not only a brief review of the whole book, but also stresses the most important moments of the story which are necessary for the later analysis. Chapter three focuses on one of the most important books for character analysis, to highlight the connection between Rebus`s fictional and Rankin`s real life. There is a 8 breakpoint which closely links Rankin to Rebus. The point of this chapter is to prove, that in several moments, Rankin did not distinguish his life from Rebus`s and therefore he reflects his life in his novels. The aim of chapter four is to show how Rankin ended Rebus`s series and it is intended to prove how much Rebus meant to Rankin. Moreover, Rankin attempted to show why he could not let Rebus die, even though he was enclosing the circle and according to the tradition of the genre he should have followed the structural pattern, which means that he should have let him die. Last but not least, Rankin`s ability to visualize reality on the basis of fiction has to be emphasized. He offers a vision not only of recent Scottish issues, but most of all he shows the reader the real Edinburgh, as opposed to his dark vision of the city of the “Jekyll and Hyde.” Furthermore,