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Feminist Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction As Political Protest in The Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2005 Feminist hard-boiled detective fiction as political protest in the tradition of women proletarian writers of the 1930s Laura Ellen Ng Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Ng, Laura Ellen, "Feminist hard-boiled detective fiction as political protest in the tradition of women proletarian writers of the 1930s" (2005). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 3858. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/3858 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. FEMINIST HARD-BOILED DETECTIVE FICTION AS POLITICAL PROTEST IN THE TRADITION OF WOMEN PROLETARIAN WRITERS OF THE 1930S A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Laura Ng B.A., Morehead State University, 1995 M.A., Morehead State University, 1997 May 2005 i ©Copyright 2005 Laura Ellen Ng All rights reserved ii Acknowledgements I want to thank my committee, David Madden, Dr. Robin Roberts, Dr. Carl Freedman, and Dr. Jack May, for their guidance. I would especially like to thank the chair of my committee, David Madden, for his leadership and direction. I also wish to acknowledge the unflagging support of my husband, Chilton Ng. iii Table of Contents Copyright………………………………………………………………………………………….ii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………… iii Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………...vi Chapter One: Feminist Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction and Women’s Proletarian Writings……………………………………………………………………………………… …. 1 Chapter Two: The Code of Words….……………………………………………………………12 2.1 Cop Talk and Legalese………………………………………………………………16 2.2 Women of the Orders………………………………………………………………..27 2.3 Vital Questions: Witness and Suspect........................................................................32 2.4 In the Tradition: Reader as Witness…………………………………………………36 2.5 Language Mastery and Genre Mastery……………………………………………...39 Chapter Three: Call a Spade a Spade: Physical Performance in Feminist Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction………………………………………………………………………………....40 3.1 Creating the Tough Guy……………………………………………………………..42 3.2 Gender Myths and Genre Demands…………………………………………………43 3.3 Body Presentation…………………………………………………………………...48 3.4 Body Image and Professional Image………………………………………………..59 Chapter Four: The Color of Money……… ……………………………………………………..61 4.1 The Power of the Blue Collar………………………………………………………. 61 4.2 Romance of Poverty………………………………………………………….……...63 4.3 The Class of Tradition……………………………………………………………… 63 4.4 Proletarian Dilemma………………………………………………………………...68 4.5 Feminism’s Struggle with Voice and Class…………………………………………72 4.6 Hard-boiled Idealism………………………………………………………………..73 4.7 Power of the People…………………………………………………………………94 Chapter Five: No Woman Is an Island…………………………………………………………..97 5.1 Strength in Numbers………………………………………………………………... 97 5.2 Masculine Tradition and Isolation…………………………………………………..99 5.3 Proletariat Progress………………………………………………………………...107 5.4 Political Feminism: Connections and Control…………………………………….109 5.5 Family Connections………………………………………………………………..121 5.6 Community Connections…………………………………………………………..126 5.7 Community Ties Create Power for Feminist Hard-Boiled Detectives…………….131 Chapter Six: Breaking the Veil of Silence……………………………………………………..133 6.1 Violence and the Role of Hard-boiled Detective…………………………………..133 6.2 Violence and Social Sanctioning…………………………………………………..134 iv 6.3 Violence and the Traditional Masculine Hard-boiled Detective…………………..138 6.4 Proletarian Tradition and Violence………………………………………………...141 6.5 Violence and Subversion in Feminist Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction……………..144 6.6 Violence Is a Problematic Tool for Feminist Hard-Boiled Detectives...………… .165 Chapter Seven: Power of Revelation…………………………………………………………...166 7.1 To Tell the Truth…………………………………………………………………...166 7.2 Resolution………………………………………………………………………….167 7.3 Individual Victims and Corporate Killers………………………………………….176 7.4 Telling a Tale: Information Sharing……………………………………………… 182 7.5 It Takes a Village to Solve a Mystery: Group Resolutions……………………….191 7.6 Liar’s Club: Truth and Gender in Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction………………...198 7.7 Interpretation and Disclosure………………………………………………………209 Chapter Eight: Feminist Hard-Boiled Detective Writers Carrying on the Tradition of Protest……………………………………………………………………………..211 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………………….221 Vita……………………………………………………………………………………………...227 v Abstract Contemporary feminist hard-boiled detective fiction has been studied as an adaptation of the traditional masculine hard-boiled detective genre. Writers such as Sara Paretsky, Sue Grafton, and Marcia Muller create compelling feminist protagonists to fill the role of detective. The successes and failures of these feminist detectives have then been measured against the standards created in the classic genre by Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and James M. Cain. The classic hard-boiled masculine genre came of age in the 1930s and 1940s at the same time as proletarian literature. The two genres share many characteristics including reliance upon first person narrative, the tough guy voice, an awareness of political and social hierarchies, and the utilization of realism. While women writers such as Josephine Herbst and Catherine Brody were drawn to the political cause of the proletarian, they were separated from the working class by their socioeconomic ties and from the literary proletarian hero by its masculine conception. Consequently, their fiction often included the middle-class woman intellectual struggling to help the oppressed worker. In these works, gender, class, politics, and social order are intertwined. The characters explore these concepts and what avenues of rebellion and power were open to women at the time. The struggles explored in the writing of women proletarian writers from the 1930s have much in common with the issues examined in contemporary feminist hard-boiled detective fiction. Both genres show women characters with an awareness of the power of language to include and exclude, the importance of physical presentation and performance, the prestige of being associated with specific social classes, the power found in ties to communities and family, a problematic relationship with violence, and the power of revealing and interpreting vi information. It is clear that feminist hard-boiled detective fiction is then a genre of political protest in the tradition of women proletarian writers of the 1930s. vii Chapter One: Feminist Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction and Women’s Proletarian Writings Every type of fiction has its own degree and special kind of relevance to the nature and composition of society, which it both reflects and affects. David Madden, 1968 Feminist hard-boiled detective novels are skillfully crafted works that allow their authors to further their political agendas, protest social hierarchies, and promote social change by utilizing literary tools similar to those used by women proletarian writers of the 1930s and 1940s. Hard-boiled detective fiction strikes a chord with American society through characters, settings, and corruption, which correspond to American lifestyles, fears, and desires. Detective fiction has always been a complex and dynamic genre, with its direct commentary on criminal corruption, social injustice, and political practices. Hard-boiled detective fiction is a genre of awareness. Contemporary feminist hard-boiled detective fiction writers have readily adapted the masculine hard-boiled detective fiction genre’s tradition of social examination and incorporated more political protest and demands for social change. The most striking difference between the masculine hard-boiled detective fiction of the 1930s and 1940s and similar fiction being written by women today is the way in which women authors are now using the genre to further the political and literary goals of the feminist movement. Feminism and the traditional hard-boiled genre, the long-time home of the American tough guy, may seem to be an ill-fitting match. The crime-plagued 1940s world inhabited by traditional tough guys, as created by Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, and James M. Cain, seems inhospitable to and incompatible with the political reform of the contemporary feminist hard-boiled detectives, as fashioned by Sara Paretsky, Sue Grafton, and Marcia Muller. Indeed, critics such as Kathleen Gregory Klein have long upheld the idea that the feminist hard-boiled 1 detective is incapable of surviving as anything other than a drag character in the genre as she inherited it. But is it accurate to assume that the feminist hard-boiled detective writers are dealing with generic conventions strictly from traditional masculine hard-boiled detective fiction? Actually, feminist hard-boiled detective writers do use the conventions of the traditional male- dominated hard-boiled detective genre, but they also incorporate tools and techniques of protest and subversion, both generic and political,
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