WOMEN IN THE CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN MYSTERY NOVEL: A STUDY IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF LITERATURE
Kathleen M. Carroll, Ph.D.
The University of Connecticut, 196*4
This study examines the portrayal of women in the contemporary American mystery novel. One out of every four books sold today is a mystery novel, but very little research has been done on the treatment of women characters in mystery fiction. Most of the research on mystery novels has focused on the history of the mystery and the role or function of this form of fiction. The work that has been done on women in mystery novels has mainly looked at single authors, or at the woman detective. This study examines both women detectives and nondetectives, the latter group being far more numerous than the former. The study also looks at the relationship between certain author characteristics—such as an author's sex, age, or country of origin—and the treatment of male and female characters in Kathleen M. Carroll—The University of Connecticut, 1984 mystery novels. A sample of 163 mystery novels from three time periods—1955, 1965, and 1975—was randomly selected, and each of the sample novels was content analyzed. The content analysis included a code sheet for each major and secondary character in the novels. Notes on the plots and themes employed in the novels were also taken. The findings indicate that men and women characters in mystery novels are portrayed very differently, and that the characterization of women is heavily influenced by the traditional sexrole stereotypes. Women characters in mystery novels are generally portrayed as passive, dependent, and emotional, while men characters are portrayed as active, aggressive, and instrumental. The characterization of the two sexes changed little over the three sample periods. The findings also show that some author variables affect gender portrayal in mystery novels. For example, women authors, single authors, and college-educated authors tend to employ less sexrole stereotyping in their mystery novels. Two questions for future research are suggested. WOMEN IN THE CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN MYSTERY NOVEL A STUDY IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF LITERATURE
Kathleen M. Carroll
B • A • f The University of Connecticut, 1976
M.A., The University of Connecticut, 1979
A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
at
The University of Connecticut 1984 Copyright by
Kathleen M. Carroll
1984 APPROVAL PAGE
Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation
WOMEN IN THE CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN MYSTERY NOVEL:
A STUDY IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF LITERATURE
Presented by
Kathleen M. Carroll, B.Ai, M.A.
Major Adviser
Associate Adviser — James V. DeFron^cT
Associa te Adviser * Kenneth P. Hadden
The University of Connecticut
1984
ii TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Tables ...... iv Chapter 1: A History of the Sociology of Literature .... 1
Endnotes ...... 25 Chapter 2: The Sociology of Literature and the Mystery Novel...... 26 Endnotes ...... 53 Chapter 3: Women Characters in Popular Literature .... 58
Endnotes ...... 88 Chapter 4: Women in Mystery Novels ...... 92 Endnotes ...... Ill
Chapter 5: Research Questions and Research Methods ... 114 Endnotes ...... 125 Chapter 6: Research Findings ...... 128
Endnote ...... 167 Chapter 7: Recurrent Themes in the Characterization of Men and Women in Mystery Novels ...... 168 Endnotes ...... 213 Chapter 8: Summary and Conclusions ...... 223
Endnotes ...... 268 Appendix A: Women and the Mass Media ...... 272 Appendix B: Code Sheets .... 281
Appendix C: Sample Novels ...... 286 References ...... 298
- iii - LIST OF TABLES
Table Page Table 1: Percent of Male and Female Characters by Year ...... 129 Table 2: Character Type by Character Sex for all Samples ...... 129 Table 3: Character Type by Character Sex by Year ... 130
Table 4: Character Occupation by Character Sex ..... 131 Table 5: Character Occupation by Character Sex by Year ...... 132 Table 6: Character Age by Character Sex for all Samples ...... 134 Table 7: Character Age by Character Sex by Year .... 135 Table 5: Character Age Category by Character Sex ..... 136
Table 9: Character Age Category by Character Sex by Year ...... 136
Table 10: Character Marital Status by Character Sex ... 137 Table 11: Character Marital Status by Character Sex by Year ...... 139 Table 12: Character Parenting Status by Character Sex for all Samples ...... 140 Table 13: Character Parenting Status by Character Sex by Year ...... 140 Table 14: Character Role by Character Sex for all Samples ...... 142 Table 15: Character Role by Character Sex by Year ..... 143 Table 16: Other Victimizations by Character Sex for all Samples ...... 144 Table 17: Character Behaviors by Character Sex ...... 145
- iv - Table 18: Character Behaviors by Character Sex by Year 147 Table 19: Author Variables by Year ...... 149 Table 20: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by Author's Sex for all Samples ...... 153 Table 21: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by Author's Sex by Year ...... 153 Table 22: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by Author's Age for all Samples ...... 155 Table 23: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by Author's Age by Year ...... 156 Table 24: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by Author's Education for all Samples ...... 157
Table 25: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by Author's Education by Year ...... 158 Table 26: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by Author's Occupation for all Samples ..... 158 Table 27: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by Author's Marital Status for all Samples .... 160 Table 28: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by Author's Country for all Samples ...... 160 Table 29: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by Author's Country by Year ...... 161 Table 30: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by Author's Prior Number of Mysteries ...... 162
Table 31: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by Author's Prior Number of Mysteries (collapsed) ...... 163 Table 32: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by Author's Prior Number of Mysteries by Year .. 163 Table 33: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by Author's Mystery Style for all Samples ..... 164 Table 34: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by Author's Use of Pseudonym for all Samples ... 165 Table 35: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by Author’s Use of Pseudonym by Year ...... 166 Chapter I A HISTORY OF THE SOCIOLOGY OF LITERATURE
The Study of Literature in European Sociology
The sociology of literature, as a distinct subfield within sociology, is thought to have emerged in the year 1800 with the publication of De la lltterature consideree dans ses rapports avec les Institutions sociales by Madame de Stael (1766-1817). In the first sentence of this work, de Stael set forth her intentions in writing this volume:
"My purpose is to examine the influence of religion, custom, and law upon literature, and the influence of literature upon religion, custom, and law" (quoted from Berger,
1977:198). To achieve her goal, de Stael examined the literature of several ancient and modern European countries, and offered a series of observations concerning the relationships between literature and climate, literature and geography, and literature and a rather vague factor which she labeled national character. Among her observations were the notions that Northern climates were more likely to produce melancholy writers and those whose literature was dominated by a "passionate sadness," while Southern climates tended to produce literature that was characterized by "coolness, dense woods and limpid streams" (quoted from Laurenson and Swingewood, 1972:27).
1 2
Equal in importance to climate was "national character" which she argued was determined by a complex interaction between a nation's religious, legal, and political systems.
The interaction of these three institutions resulted in a national spirit which influenced each society's literature. However, de Stael, while at least in part advancing a social explanation for the variations in literature which she perceived from country to country, offered no method for analyzing the relationship between social structure and literature, and did not provide a clear definition of her meaning of national character. Thus while Madame de Stael is credited with the first "explicit attempt to treat literature sociologically" (Burns and Burns, 1973:10), her efforts were not universally regarded as successful and, in fact, the honor of being the central figure in the conjunction between sociology and literature is usually awarded to another French citizen, Hippolyte Taine. Hippolyte Taine (1828-1893) was a scientific positivist.
Like his predecessor, Auguste Corate, Taine strove to place sociology in line with the natural sciences. In his writings, he attempted to find the "laws" or the "invariable relations of succession and resemblance" (Comte, 1896:Vol.1:2) that governed the production of literature and art in a society. "Vice and virtue are products like vitriol and sugar," Taine remarked in writing, and, accordingly, the measurement of vice or virtue could be 3 accomplished with the same tools used to measure either sugar or vitriol (Taine quoted from Levin, 1973:58). For Taine, the literature of a society could be understood in terms of certain ascertainable facts about the society. Three facts in particular—race (meaning innate or hereditary human characteristics), moment (meaning age, or epoch, or spirt of the times), and milieu (meaning both climate and geography, and also social facts such as economic and political conditions)—were the determining forces in the production of both literature and art in any society. The interaction of these three concepts produced what Taine called a particular "mental structure" which led to the development of "germinal ideas" in a society. These germinal ideas, which by Taine's definition represented the basic characteristics and emotions of the society, would then find their expression in great art and literature (Laurenson and Swingewood, 1972:33). In short, Taine subscribed to a reflection theory of literature: A society's literature will reflect characteristics of the society itself, or as Taine explained, the novel can be seen as a "Kind of portable mirror which can be conveyed everywhere, and which is most convenient for reflecting all aspects of nature and life" (Taine, quoted from Levin, 1973:66).
Taine believed that art was a product of its society and, as such, would reflect that society from which it was produced. But Taine's rigid determinism led to certain 4 problems in his analysis: "For if every writer is the •product* of a given society, then how to explain the contrasts and oppositions that mark almost any period of literature? How to explain the coexistence in the same society of Descartes and Pascal, Voltaire and Rousseau?” (Birchall, 1972:41-2). Taine "solved" this problem by going to great lengths to find the common features linking one writer to the next; however, the success of his efforts was not always readily apparent to the outside reader. Even more problematic was Taine's mechanical explanation of literature as a response to external conditions. As one critic notes, there was "...nothing in any of his analyses of actual textual criticism, of linking specific parts of the text with specific external facts" (Laurenson and Swingewood, 1972:37). Thus, although Hippolyte Taine introduced the methods of positivism into the sociology of literature and set the stage for a social explanation of literature and art, his work in this subfield of sociology was of a largely formative and simplistic nature. In many respects, within the subfield of the sociology of literature, the work of Karl Marx (1818-1883) and
Frederick Engels (1820-1895), two of Taine's contemporaries, was also rough and formative in nature. As more than one observer has noted, "In the writings of both Marx and
Engels...there is no fashioned theory of literature's relation with society, but merely hints, ambiguity, and some 5 dogma" (Laurenson and Swingewood, 1972:50; See also, Evans, 1981:7). In point of fact, the very ambiguity of Marx and Engels's writings in this area gave rise to a duality in later Marxist theory in the sociology of literature. On the one hand, there existed the vulgar or para-Marxists who embraced the positivistic emphasis on "external factors as the ultimate determinants of literary creativity and production" (Laurenson and Swingewood, 1972:57). And on the other hand, there existed a group of Marxian theorists who focused on the intrinsic characteristics of individual literary works or, in other words, a group who concentrated on the "study of society in literature" rather than "the study of literature in society" (Bisztray, 1972:49). The vulgar or para-Marxists shared a series of beliefs with regard to the position of literature in society. As summarized by George Steiner, these beliefs included: The belief that literature is centrally conditioned by historical, social and economic forces; the conviction that ideological content and the articulate world-view of a writer are crucially engaged in the act of literary judgement; a suspicion of any aesthetic doctrine which places major stress on the irrational elements in poetic creation and on the demands of •pure form.' Finally, they share a bias toward dialectical proceedings in argument (Steiner, 1973:164).
In its most basic form, the position of the vulgar or para-Marxists was based on the belief that art and literature are inextricably bound to the means of production and property relations or, in other words, that literature 6
must be seen as ideology and an epiphenomenon of the class structure of society. One of the firmest adherents to this doctrine was the Russian theorist George Plekhanov
(1857-1918) who asserted that cultural history can be seen as a "reflection of the history of its classes of their struggle, one with the other" (Plekhanov, quoted from
Laurenson and Swingewood, 1972:52). Plekhanov provided a dogmatic interpretation of Marx and Engels's theory on the relationship between literature and society. Plekhanov believed that all literature was class-bound, or, in other words, that literature was part of the superstructure of society. As such, the shape of
literature was wholly determined by the economic base of the society. As an example, Plekhanov cited the rise of tragedy and the decline of farce in eighteenth-century French drama.
Plekhanov argued that this change in dramatic form reflected the economic circumstances of this era, for while the main
aficionados of farce were, by and large, from the lower
class, the majority of the devotees of tragedy were members of the aristocracy (Laurenson and Swingewood, 1972:52). According to Plekhanov, the task of the sociologist of
literature was to determine the social forces influencing the literature of each period. As Plekhanov explained, "The primary task of criticism is to translate the idea of a given work of art from the language of art to the language of sociology, and thereby find what could be called the 7
sociological equivalent of a certain literary phenomenon" (Plekhanov, quoted from Bisztray, 1972:53). Plekhanov's work in this area was continued by Georg Lukacs (1085-1971), a Hungarian intellectual who was one of the most influential theorists in the European study of the sociology of literature. Lukacs accepted Plekhanov's argument that literature is part of the superstructure of society and thereby reflects the class struggle. As Lukacs himself stated, "...the entire development of literary
forms, and here in particular the novel, is nothing more than a reflection of social development itself" (Lukacs, 1973:288-89). Lukacs professed that the aim of literature
must be to "represent the struggle of different classes, strata, parties and trends" (Lukacs, 1973:288), and he believed that this could be accomplished by fictively
representing "a particular social reality at a particular time, with all the colour and specific atmosphere of that time" (Lukacs, 1973:295). In other words, Lukacs felt that
the fictive and social worlds shared the same level of reality and that the aim of literature should be to make this reality more "coherent, understandable, and significant" (Burns and Burns, 1973:200). Lukacs, and his predecessor Plekhanov, were two of the foremost spokesmen for the vulgar or para-Marxist school in the sociology of literature. George Bisztray, a sociologist of literature who has studied the Marxist influence in this 8
area, labeled Plekhanov and his followers "the sociological school” because of their emphasis on social conditions as the "ultimate factor" determining literary work (Bisztray,
1972:51). In response to the theories generated by the sociological school of Marxists, a second school developed
which is now associated almost entirely with the work of Lucien Goldmann (1913-1970), a Rumanian-born scholar who lived and worked in Paris throughout most of his adult life.
Goldmann rejected the extreme emphasis on extrinsic factors which characterized both the work of the sociological Marxists and the early positivists, such as Hippolyte Taine.
As Goldmann explained. Most work in the sociology of literature established a relation between the most important literary works and the collective consciousness of the particular social group from which they emerged.... Marxist theoreticians, like positivistic or relativistic sociologists of literature, have always thought that the social life can be expressed on the literary, artistic, or philosophical plane only through the intermediary link of the collective consciousness (Goldmann, 1975:8-9).
In contrast to this emphasis on the collective consciousness of the social group, Goldmann believed that the individual creator or artist played a central and crucial role in the production of literature or art in a society.
Goldmann*s work in the sociology of literature was heavily influenced by two of his contemporaries: Georg
Lukacs—especially Lukacs's earlier (prior to 1926) 9
writings, which were considerably less dogmatic and deterministic than his later writings (although the latter writings, in terms of quantity, made up the bulk of Lukacs's work)—and the Swiss psychologist, Jean Piaget, with whom Goldmann worked throughout most of World War II following his escape from a refugee camp in Toulouse (Evans, 1981:2, 9-10, 34). Like Lukacs, Goldmann accepted the Marxist proposition that literature (and especially the novel) is influenced by
the economic substructure of a society. As Goldmann himself noted, "...the novel form is, of all literary forms, the most immediately and most directly linked to the economic
structure in the narrow sense of the term, to the structures of exchange and market production" (Goldmann, 1975:134). But, unlike Lukacs, Goldmann believed that literature
possessed an individual aspect as well. As Goldmann stated in 1967, "Cultural and artistic works themselves have at one and the same time a highly individual and a highly
socialized character" (Goldmann, 1973:115). In the quarter of a century following the end of World War II and his death in 1970, Goldmann wrote prolificly on the subject of the sociology of literature.* In his writings, Goldmann focused on two main points: the changing
form of the novel, with specific attention directed toward the relationship between this change and changes in the economic circumstances of society (it is specifically in 10 these writings that Lukacs's influence is most evident); and, the interaction between the individual artist and the social group in the production of art in a society (it is in
these writings that Goldmann breaks away from the "sociological school" and offers a new perspective for the sociology of literature).
With regard to the first point, Goldmann postulated that the form of the novel changed radically near the end of the
19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, due to
the advent of what he called—following Marx—"imperialism" (by which he meant the wholesale introduction of trusts, monopolies, and finance capitalism into economic society).
This change in economic relations, which Goldmann felt occurred in two stages, precipitated a corresponding transformation in cultural creation. In literature this transformation manifested itself in a change in literary values. According to Goldmann, in the pre-capitalist or classical novel, objects (as opposed to human characters) had a "primordial importance" but existed "only through their relations with individuals" (Goldmann, 1975:138). Individuals, or in other words, characters or heroes, were the focus of the classical novel. However, this focus gradually changed with the introduction of imperialism. In the first stage of imperialism, roughly between the years of 1912 and 1945, the value of objects in literature increased steadily, culminating in the second stage, at which point 11 characters were sacrificed and objects achieved an autonomous existence in literature. As Goldmann explained. On the literary plane, the essential transformation concerns primarly...the character/objects structural unity, modified in the direction of a more or less radical disappearance of the character and a corresponding strengthening of the autonomy of objects (Goldmann, 1975:134).
Goldmann related this literary development to the changing economic relations introduced with the onset of imperialism. According to his theory, the single greatest qualitative change, from the perspective of literature, was
the transformation of human relations to "economic'' or "object" relations. As Goldmann explained. On the immediate level of individual consciousness, the economic life assumes the aspect of the rational egotism homo economicus, of the exclusive search for maximum profit with no consideration for the problems of human relations with others and above all with no consideration for society as a whole. From this viewpoint, other men become for the seller or buyer objects like any other objects, mere means that enable him to achieve his ends, whose only important human quality will be their capacity to make contracts and produce constricting obligations" (Goldmann, 1975:137).
In short, Goldmann believed that the economic relations characterizing the 20th century had a radical impact on the form of the novel in society. As he hypothesized. It seems to me that to the last two periods in the history of the economy and of reification in Western societies correspond two great periods in the history of the novel form: the first is characterized by the dissolution of the character...the second, which is only beginning to find its literary expression...is precisely marked 12 by the appearance of an autonomous world of objects, with its own structure and its own laws and through which alone human reality can still to a certain extent express itself (Goldmann, 1975:139).
The point reflected in this hypothesis was consistent
with a Marxist interpretation of literature in society, and could have followed from Lukacs's earlier worK in the sociology of literature. But Goldmann did not stop here.
Turning away from Lukacs, and towards Piaget, who had developed a theory of structure and structuration, Goldmann developed his own theory on the sociology of literature, which he called "Genetic Structuralism" (Evans, 1981:34). By Goldmann's own definition, genetic structuralism was "above all a rigorously holistic position" (Goldmann,
1973:111). Genetic structuralism was based on the idea that works of literature must be grasped and studied as "wholes." A work of literature could not be broken up into its constituent parts without seriously undermining its meaning. In other words, Goldmann's "...argument is that all great literary and philosophical works have a total coherence and that the structures which make up the texts have a meaning only insofar as they give *a complete and coherent picture of the overall meaning of the work'" (Laurenson and Swingewood, 1972:62-63).
Having established that the literary work must be seen as the basic datum in the sociology of literature, Goldmann went on to hypothesize a relationship between the individual 13 artist and the social group in the creation of art or literature. He theorized that through participation in the social group, the individual artist develops a ’’world view” which reflects reality. But this world view is not simply a reflection of the social group’s collective consciousness because the social group as a whole has not been able to achieve a completely coherent understanding of reality. This is an achievement which can only be attained by the individual artist whose consciousness has been refined and advanced by the social group. As Goldmann explained. The creation of cultural works is characterized by the fact that it achieves on a particular level (in our case, that of literary creation) a roughly coherent universe which corresponds to a world view, the fundamentals of which have been worked out by a very special social group. Naturally, the members of the group do not achieve such coherence in more than a remote, approximate fashion. Thus, the writer does not reflect the conscience collective, as the traditional line of positivist mechanistic sociology maintained, but, on the contrary, advances very considerably the degree of structural coherence which the collective consciouness itself has so far attained only in a rough and ready fashion. Thus the work constitutes a collective achievement through the individual consciousness of its creator, an achievement which will afterwards reveal to the group what it was moving towards ’without knowing it,* in its ideas, its feelings and its behaviour (Goldmann, 1973:114-15).
The Study of Literature j.n American Sociology
Through the work of Goldmann and his predecessors, the sociology of literature has developed into a respected and mature subfield of the discipline in European sociology. In
American sociology, however, the study of literature is 14
still in its infancy. Why the American version of this particular subfield of sociology has lagged so far behind its European counterpart has been traced to several reasons. In the first place, the sociology of literature was born in Europe and the early publications of Madame de Stael and Hippolyte Taine reached a mostly European audience and
influenced other European writers to study the relationship between art and society (Albrecht et al., 1970:ix). But while the birth of the sociology of literature in Europe unquestionably gave European sociologists a headstart in this area, other factors also intervened in the contest
between European and American progress in this subfield. In particular, the general disdain displayed by many American sociologists towards literature has severely retarded the progress of the sociology of literature in America. As Lewis Coser (1963:3) has noted: The creative imagination of the literary artist often has achieved insights into social processes which have remained unexplored in social science. This has been so, perhaps, because social scientists have but too often felt that it is somewhat beneath their dignity to show an interest in literature.
Coser suggests that this aversion to literature is an understandable reaction on the part of the practitioners of a science still in its formative state. This explanation has been seconded by Audrey Borenstein (1978:128), who believes that the "rigid scientism" of modern sociology prevents the discipline from benefiting from the "nature of 15 imagination," and by Robert Wilson (1979:4), who hypothesizes that
The disregard and even pronounced animus shown by social scientists toward art is undoubtedly caused in some degree by their need to separate themselves from an "unscientific" humanist tradition. Only recently emancipated from philosophy and theology and proudly striving for a rational, empirical approach to social events, the student of man feels obligated to disavow the unsystematic perceptions of poet or playwright.
In many ways, the reception accorded to the sociology of literature by American sociologists parallels the critical reception which greeted the introduction of the novel into
17th and 18th century society. The popularity of the novel today could not be predicted based upon the initial, highly critical reaction to this new branch of literature. As Morroe Berger (1977:28) explains: As a new form of literature intended for a broader audience, including young women and men, describing the private lives of plain people rather than the public lives of the great, and offering counsel without hesitation, the novel did not quickly win the admiration of the guardians of literary taste and morality. These characteristics of the early novel, coupled with the prominence of women as authors, subjects, and readers, assured it a low intellectual and social position. Like sociology later in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, fiction in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was on the defensive, seeking to prove its intellectual and social value.
Berger reports that although the novel quickly achieved popular success in France and England, it was not until the second quarter of the 19th century that the novel was 16 "accepted on its own ground by the critics and guardians of taste" (Berger, 1977:28). Bearing this fact in mind, one can see why the early
American sociologists might have been loathe to include literature as an area of study for their fledgling discipline. (And, of course, there was abundant precedent
for dismissing literature as worthless to science, going back as far as Plato, who, in The Republic, suggested that the poet should be barred from entering the commonwealth because he a) "knows nothing worth mentioning about the subject he represents," b) produces work "with no knowledge of truth," and c) "stimulates and strengthens an element which threatens to undermine reason" (Plato, 1945:328-37).) Research in the sociology of literature in America did not begin until the 1920s and even then the research that occurred was rare and of a largely applied nature (Albrecht et al., 1970:ix-x). Unlike their European colleagues, American sociologists of literature have not developed an elaborate theoretical framework, and the absence of theory in this subfield has been repeatedly noted by observers (See, Berger, 1977:11; Bradbury, 1971:xviii; Forster and
Kenneford, 1973:356-57; Schapiro, 1961:112-13). The theory which has developed in the American branch of the sociology of literature can be attributed mainly to the efforts of Milton C. Albrecht, who's 1954 American Journal of Sociology article entitled "The Relationship of 17 Literature and Society" has formed the foundation of American theory in this subfield. In this article, Albrecht outlined three hypotheses concerning the interaction between literature and society. Albrecht's three hypotheses have been reiterated in whole or in part by most of the sociologists of literature who have followed him (for example, see: Berger, 1977:194-98; Cawelti, 1976:22-27; Geise, 1979:51-62; Griswold, 1981:740-65; Fritz and Hevener, 1979:105-28; Lukenbill, 1981:219-27; Nobel, 1976:211-24; Nostrand, 1970:562-72; Wilson, 1979:xiii-xiv, 13-14; Wollheim, 1970:574-77), and Albrecht himself reviewed parts of his work in the introduction to an edited volume entitled The Sociology of Art and Literature in 1970.
Basically, Albrecht proposed that there are three possible hypotheses concerning the connections between literature and society. As he explained. One hypothesis is that literature 'reflects' society; its supposed converse is that literature influences or 'shapes' society. A third hypothesis is that literature functions socially to maintain and stabilize, if not to justify and sanctify, the social order, which may be called the 'social control* theory (Albrecht, 1954:425).
The Reflection Hypothesis
Albrecht's first hypothesis, the reflection hypothesis, is one of the oldest ways in which literature and society have been related. According to this hypothesis, literature acts as a mirror to society. What occurs in society, occurs in literature, and the causality is unidirectional, with 18 society as the independent variable. Many of the earliest students of the sociology of literature employed a reflection approach, including Madame de Stael and Hippolyte
Taine. In fact, around the time when Madame de Stael first began her work in this area, in the 18th century, a new criteria which judged art on the basis of its closeness to reality began to assume prominence in England and in France. Prior to this era, other criteria had often been used to judge the value of art. As Morroe Berger (1977:2) reports. In the era of the novel especially, art is deemed important or serious to the degree that it mirrors or illuminates reality. This notion is now so familiar that its novelty or peculiarity is forgotten. Before it became widely accepted during the eighteenth century, other criteria were more often applied. For example, art was considered valid to the degree that it justified respect for the divine order, for rulers, or for mythical heroes.
The reflection hypothesis or theory has had a distinguished history in America as well as in Europe. Pitirim Sorokin adapted this hypothesis for his own use in his theory of civilization (Albrecht, 1954:427) . Sorokin's theory identified cycles or phases in the history of society. These phases, which Sorokin called "ideational" and "sensate," possessed certain characteristics which were then reflected in the literature and art of that period (Albrecht, 1954:427). For example, Sorokin hypothesized that
The history of the Graeco-Roman and Western European art shows that the long-time fluctuation or alternation of the Sensate and Ideational forms 19
really occurs in all fields of art: painting, sculpture, music, architecture, literature, and drama....When one of these forms
Speaking specifically about literature, Sorokin argued that, "The literary work which deals with the 'invisible world,' superempirical and transcendental, and in which words and images are but symbols of this world, is according to definition, ideational literature,” while the literary work which "depicts and describes empirical phenomena in their sensory aspect, where words and images have nothing but their empirical meaning, is Sensate literature” (Sorokin,
1937:595). Yet, despite Sorokin's interest in the relationship between fluctuations in society and corresponding fluctuations in literature, he was not a sociologist of literature, per se. Sorokin studied art and its relationship to society in order to gain a better understanding of the cyclical process of history, or in other words, as James Barnett has explained, Sorokin examined art "...for clues to the general processes of cultural integration and change rather than to learn how it is related to the social order in a causal-functional manner" (Barnett, 1970:625).
Karl Marx also used literature and art to buttress his theory of civilization. As was mentioned earlier, Marx 20 never elaborated a specific theory on literature's relationship to society, but he did offer some hypotheses on this subject, and some of these hypotheses fit squarely within the reflection theory. For example, the Marxian idea that the economic system forms the base of the society, and from this base the superstructure (which would include literature and art, along with other ideologies) is derived, expresses a reflection approach to the relationship between literature and society, i.e., the literature of a society, according to this idea, would reflect the economic interests of the society's ruling class. Many contemporary sociologists have also employed the reflection theory, although they have sometimes referred to it by different names; for example, Wollheim (1970:576) calls it the "expressive explanation," and Cawelti (1976:26) calls it the "symbolic theory." But while the name may change, the basic idea—that literature mirrors society—remains the same. A contemporary definition of the reflection theory can be found in the introduction to Lewis Coser's Sociology Through Literature (1963:2) in which Coser writes:
Literature, though it may also be many other things, is social evidence and testimony. It is a continuous commentary on manners and morals. Its great monuments, even as they address themselves to the eternal existential problems which are at the root of the perennial tensions between men and their society, preserve for us the precious record of modes of response to peculiar social and cultural conditions. 21
Impact Theories Albrecht's second hypothesis proposes that literature shapes or influences society. This hypothesis falls within the realm of what have been called "impact theories" of literature, which "...assume basically that literary forms and/or contents have some direct influence on human behavior" (Cawelti, 1976:22). Impact theories assign an important place to literature in a society. Literature, under this school of thought, determines, as well as is determined by, society. In terms of cause and effect, the assignment of causality is no longer unidirectional; society may influence literature, but at the same time literature may also influence society. As explained by Robert Wilson (1979:xiii), the assumption of impact theories is that Art not only mirrors what is going on but also has a potential influence on society. Audiences attending to expressive forms may find their perceptions and behaviors altered as a consequence of this aesthetic involvement. In literary critical theory it is often asserted that art contributes to changes in our language, therefore, in the long run, it inevitably changes us because it changes the linguistic mold in which we perceive and report on the world.
While the influence or impact theory on the relationship between literature and society has not been as popular with sociologists of literature as the reflection theory, the influence theory has found many supporters in political circles. The idea of censorship in literature is predicated on the belief that literature can play a role in social 22 change. Censorship affirms the importance of literature in a society or, as Audrey Borenstein notes, "Censorship is at least a kind of tribute, a sign that literature is taken seriously" (Borenstein, 1978:xvi). Some of Marx’s work has been interpreted to support an influence or impact theory. Specifically, some of Marx's followers have suggested that Marx believed that the literature of a society would reflect the dialectical nature of the society. Part of the literature would express the ideas and values of the ruling class, but another part would express the ideas and values of the revolutionary class, and this latter literature would contribute to the momentum leading to social change through revolution (Albrecht,
1954:428). This particular Marxian explanation shows the obvious ties between the reflection hypothesis and the influence hypothesis. While on the one hand, the reflection hypothesis argues that literature merely reflects society and, on the other hand, the influence theory argues that literature not only reflects but also influences change in society, it is possible to see a connection between these hypotheses in that literature by reflecting society may thus precipitate change within society. Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom^s Cabin (1852) and Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (1906) are examples of literature which have often been credited with catalyzing social action and social change. 23
Social Control, Theories While the reflection hypothesis can thus be related to the influence or impact hypothesis, the reflection hypothesis can also be related to Albrecht's third and final hypothesis, the social control theory. Albrecht himself noted this latter relationship, explaining in his article that "...one can formulate the proposition that, if literature reflects, then it also confirms and strengthens cultural norms, attitudes, and beliefs" (Albrecht,
1954:431). In other words, by reflecting society, literature can act to support society or the status quo. As Robert Wilson (1979:13) explains:
A society's common values are reinforced and sometimes revised through the medium of art. If the writer restates the accepted values of a group, and does so in an appealing, convincing fashion, his work shores up the existing system. It may confirm the members of the society in their traditional ways of behaving.
Literature can act as a mechanism of social control in several different ways. It can provide for social control by simply establishing support for, or a justification of, the existing system of society or, in a more complicated fashion, it can provide for social control by offering a mechanism for the diversion of hostility in the society. In his seminal work on social conflict. The Functions of Social
CQDfli£t/ Lewis Coser noted that "Accumulated hostile or aggressive dispositions may be discharged not only against the original object of hostility, but against substitute 24 objects" (Coser, 1956:40). Coser postulated the existence of what he termed "safety-valve institutions" which serve to "divert hostility onto substitute objects" or "function as channels for cathartic release" (Coser, 1956:41). Albrecht, in his 1970 work on the sociology of literature, suggested that literature can act as one of Coser's "safety-valve institutions." As Albrecht noted. Thus some of the arts, while supplying their own types of satisfaction, also become means of releasing tensions; they operate as 'safety-valve institutions' and thus prevent overt conflict. In effect, they become not an 'opiate' of the masses so much as specific means of social control...(Albrecht, 1970:11).
Milton Albrecht's work on the three hypotheses or theories—Albrecht himself used both terms—has formed the theoretical cornerstone of American sociology of literature. But, although Albrecht first began work in this area nearly thirty years ago, the American branch of the sociology of literature has not progressed very far. In addition, much of the work that has been done in this subfield has been done with little or no theoretical underpinning.2 As a consequence, it's fair to say that nearly sixty years after its introduction into this country, the sociology of literature is still in its beginning stage. Or, as Morroe Berger has noted. The study of the relations between the fictional and real worlds, in whatever period of time, is only in its infancy. The sociology of literature has its chief task before it: to make more precise, in face of the formidable barriers, the connections between fiction and history, literature and life (Berger, 1977:213). ENDNOTES
!For a selective bibliography on Goldmann's writings, see Evans, 1981. *For example, three recent additions to the field— The Family Through Literature. by Nicholas Tavuchis and William Goode (McGraw-Hill, 1975) , Women and Language in Literature and Society, edited by Sally McConnell-Ginet, Ruth BorKer, and Nelly Furman (Praeger, 1980), and Juvenile Delinquency ID LIl2£aiDI£« edited by Thomas West Gregory "(Longman, 1980)—contain virtually no theory whatsoever.
25 Chapter II THE SOCIOLOGY OF LITERATURE AND THE MYSTERY NOVEL
One area in which the sociology of literature has been particularly lacking is the area of the mystery novel, otherwise known as crime novels, detective stories, or thrillers. While mystery novels have, from their very inception, attracted a large audience, this particular form of fiction has M...aroused relatively little interest within the sociology of literature" (Glover, 1979:21) . Several explanations have been offered for this omission.
One such explanation has been supplied by John Cawelti who has studied mystery novels as well as romance and adventure novels. Cawelti terms these three types of fiction—mystery, romance, and adventure—"formulaic literature." Formulaic novels, according to Cawelti, employ a certain structure of narrative or dramatic conventions
(Cawelti, 1976:5). In other words, most literary works within each of these three formulaic domains follow a certain formula or pattern of events with perhaps a few minor deviations. For example, Cawelti suggests that there are three minimal conditions for the murder mystery novel:
1. There must be a mystery, i.e., certain basic past facts about the situation and/or a number of the central characters must be concealed from the reader and from the protagonist until the end, or.
26 27
as in the case of the inverted procedural story the reader must understand that such facts have been concealed from the protagonist; 2. The story must be structured around an inquiry into these concealed facts with the inquirer as protagonist and his investigation as the central action; however the concealed facts must not be about the protagonist himself; 3. The concealed facts must be made known at the end (Cawelti, 1976:132).
Cawelti suggests that formula stories are successful in the literary marketplace because they capitalize on the familiar. Although the pattern or formula may be repeated from story to story, the audience doesn’t grow tired of the formula because its "predictability'1 and guaranteed
"fulfillment of conventional expectations" brings them "enjoyment and pleasure" (Cawelti, 1976:1-2). But it is these very characteristics of the formula novel which explain why this type of fiction has been rarely subject to serious study by sociologists or literary critics. As Cawelti reports, the formula novel’s "association with the times of relaxation, entertainment, and escape" has resulted in this type of story being "largely ignored by literary scholars" (Cawelti, 1976:1).
Another, slightly more complicated, explanation of the omission of crime novels from the sociology of literature has been offered by Robert Champigny. Like Cawelti,
Champigny believes that murder mysteries have been dismissed from sociological consideration because of the entertainment 28 they provide, or, as he explains, "The enhancement of the ludic interest that mystery stories cultivate... (is)...looKed at askance not because it(is)...considered detrimental to esthetic endurance but because it would compromise socioreligious seriousness," the latter being a characteristic which Champigny believes modern literature strives to achieve (Champigny, 1977:152). But, according to Champigny, even if this enhancement of the ludic interest didn't compromise socioreligious seriousness, murder mysteries would still be considered a form of sub-literature simply because they have had the misfortune of mistiming their entrance on to the literary scene.
Champigny asserts that the age of the recognizable genre in literature has passed; in fact, it is this very passing, or as he says, "the dissolution of genres" which is the "...evolutionary principle that alone can tie together various considerations about the nineteenth-century and twentieth-century literature" (Champigny, 1977:154).
Murder mysteries are a genre. They cannot escape this classification, and considering the recent "dissolution of genres" this makes murder mysteries appear "reactionary"
(Champigny, 1977:154). All of this leads Champigny to proclaim, I find the following hypothesis attractive: if mystery stories have so far generally been considered as a minor or marginal genre, it may be, in part at least, because they do look like a genre; and more precisely because, unlike odes or sonnets, epics or tragedies, they developed as a genre at the wrong time (Champigny, 1977:152). 29
Whether murder mysteries have escaped serious or sustained sociological attention because of their ludic characteristics, or their capacity for entertainment, or their unfortunate timing with regard to the alleged demise of genre literature, is, in the end, a matter of speculation. For one reason or another, few sociologists have studied this field of fiction, and the work that has been done in this area has mainly concentrated on the history of the mystery novel. These histories have illustrated the changing form of the mystery novel, and have explained how many of the changes which have occurred in this particular field of fiction can be related to social forces and historical events. One simple change has been semantic: what are now called mystery stories or murder mysteries were once known as detective stories, thrillers, private eye stories, or crime novels, although even today all of these names are still used to some extent (Mystery Writers of America, 1976:12) .
ID IDS Beginning The mystery novel's beginning is a matter of dispute. One school of thought in this dispute claims that the crime novel can be traced back to the very beginning of literature. The rape of Helen in The Iliad or the suitor's conspiracy against Odysseus's homecoming in The Odyssey have led some to laud Homer as the earliest forebear of the modern mystery novel1(Cawelti, 1976:52). The contrasting 30 school of thought contends that the beginning of mystery literature can be traced to the much more recent past and that the Keystone event launching this field of fiction was the establishment of organized police forces (Haycraft,
1975:161; Holquist, 1971:139; Reilly, 1973:156; Symons, 1972:17). As Michael Holquist has noted.
The paradox that there is nevertheless no detective fiction before the 19th century can be explained in many ways, all too complicated to go into here, except for adducing the obvious reason that you cannot have detective fiction before you have detectives. It is a curious fact that the institution of the modern metropolitan police force as we now Know it did not exist before the 19th century (Holquist, 1971:139).
Holquist notes further that the mere establishment of the police as a social institution was not sufficient cause for the birth of detective fiction, primarily because these early police forces "...did not immediately inspire confidence in their methods or morals" (Holquist, 1971:139).
John Reilly, who, liKe Holquist, belives that the beginning of detective fiction occurred sometime after the introduction of police into society, has noted that the early police forces were formed to protect the wealthy from the not-so-wealthy. As Reilly explains, in the United States,
Police forces, supported by government or employed privately by the economically powerful, originated in defense of the urban propertied class. Population density resulting from massive foreign immigration and internal migration of rural people to the cities placed the well-to-do of America under a great threat of crime and riot. This was partly the result of the simple geography of 31
city-living, more importantly, it was the consequence of a heterogeneous mixing of impoverished people uprooted from diverse cultural backgrounds who had no recognizable or socially legitimate means of voicing their grievances. Therefore, as professional agents of political authority and economic power, the police served to insulate classes from each other.2 (Reilly, 1973:155).
The class insulation or isolation provided by the police, while obviously desirable from the point of view of the upper classes, served few of the interests of the lower classes. Consequently, the early police forces were not greeted with universal admiration or respect, and as Michael
Holquist notes, "It took some time before people believed in the police as forces for good" (Holquist, 1971:139). Thus although the first metropolitan police forces—the Surete in
Paris and the Bow Street Runners in London—were established in the early decades of the 19th century, the first mystery or detective story did not appear until the 1840s (Haycraft,
1975:160-62). Most of the students of this genre agree that Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) wrote the first mystery story. The extent of this agreement can be seen in the certainty with which Michael Holquist makes the following announcement: We may argue about the birth of tragedy, whence arose comedy, the antiquity of the lyric or the rise of the novel. But about the first detective story there can be no such uncertainty. We know the precise time and place of its origin. It was in Graham’s Magazine of April, 1841, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. that The Murders in the Rue Morgue appeared, and the character which there made his entrance, sprung full-blown from the bulging brow of Poe, has. 32
under different aliases, been with us ever since (Holquist, 1971:140) .
Edgar Allan Poe employed the "analyst" C. Auguste Dupin in three stories including The Murders in the Rue Morgue. In these stories, Poe established what was to become the basic personality and style of the early mystery detectives. As John Cawelti observes. Of all Poe’s contributions to the formula of the classical detective story, his invention of the character of Dupin—with his aristocratic detachment, his brilliance and eccentricity, his synthesis of the poet's intuitive insight with the scientist's power of inductive reasoning, and his capacity for psychological analysis—was certainly the most crucial (Cawelti, 1976:93).
Yet, while the character of the detective dates back to
Poe's literary introduction of Monsieur Dupin, the widespread popularity of the character of the detective can be traced back to the creation of Dupin's descendant, the master detective, Sherlock Holmes. Dupin may have been the first detective, but he was soon overshadowed by Sir Authur
Conan Doyle's contribution to the mystery world. Sherlock Holmes first appeared in A Study in Scarlett which was printed in the 28th issue of Beeton's Christmas Annual in
1887. Three Sherlock Holmes novels followed along with sixty Sherlock Holmes short stories. The Holmes novels did not meet with instant success, but the regular appearance of the Holmes short stories in the Strand Magazine, beginning with A Scandal in Bohemia in 1891, received "enthusiastic attention" (Ruehlmann, 1974:38). 33
The History of the Mystery; From the Golden Agg to the Hard-Boiled Period
The "enthusiastic attention" accorded to Sherlock Holmes was not confined only to mystery readers. Mystery writers also appreciated Doyle's creation, and immediate imitations were quickly spawned (Ruehlmann, 1974:36). Some of the more successful imitators included: Jacques Futrelle, wno created Professor Auguste S. F. X. Van Dusen, the "Thinking
Machine," as he was dubbed by one opponent; Gilbert Keith Chesterton, who created the wise but very ordinary Father Brown; Baroness Orczy, who created the Old Man in the Corner
(an unnamed elderly gentleman who solved criminal mysteries while seated in a teashop consuming milk and cheesecake); Ernest Bramah Smith, who created the blind detective. Max
Carrados; R. Austin Freeman, who created Dr. Thorndyke, the forensic scientist; and, Melville Davisson Post, who created the very righteous Uncle Abner (Symons, 1972:76-90). All of these mystery writers produced stories during what is now known as the "Golden Age" of the mystery short story, an age which began with Sherlock Holmes and ended with the first World War (Symons, 1972:90).
The detectives who were introduced during this Golden Age shared many characteristics. They were, first and foremost, puzzle-solvers. They were men (the early detectives were almost exclusively male) of reason. They solved their mysteries with the powers of the mind. The Golden Age or classical detective stories were not stories with great 34 character development. Aside from his obviously excellent ratiocinative powers, the reader learned little about the detective in the story. As Michael Holquist explains, the magic of these stories is as we saw in the case of Poe, the power of reason, mind if you will. It is not, as is often said, the character of great detectives which accounts for their popularity. If character means anything, we must admit that most of them have very little of it. Take Sherlock Holmes, for example. He does not really exist when he is not on a case. The violin, the drugs merely keep him in a state of suspended animation until the inevitable knock on the door comes, announcing a new problem. He does not solve crimes, he solves puzzles....Holmes is less a detective than a mathematician; he is his function (Holquist, 1971:142-43) .
The Golden Age of the great puzzle-solvers, ended rather abruptly with the advent of World War I. It was at this point in time that a schism developed in the mystery genre.
Although the first detective. Monsieur Dupin, was created by an American, the major influences on this genre up until the early 1920s were English (Ruehlmann, 1974:4). Most of the great ratiocinative detectives were created by English mystery writers. These were the classical detectives. These were the detectives who proved that reason and logical deduction could solve any riddle, remove any mystery. In order for these detectives to succeed, the world had to appear a rational, reasonable place. With the outbreak of the first world war, this appearance was greatly called into question, and the mystery story experienced a division into 35 two schools. On the one hand there were authors such as Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, S.S. Van Dine, John Dickson Carr, Ellery Queen (a character/author who actually was two cousins, Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee) and others who adhered to the classical riddle formula. On the other hand, a new school of writers was developing, in reaction, many felt, to the war and its aftermath. While the old mystery formula was known as the classical formula, the new mystery formula was to be called the ',hard-boiledH novel. As David
Geherin explains: The hard-boiled novel appeared in America in the 1920s as a reaction to the prevailing form of detective fiction popular at that time, the ratiocinative novel perhaps best illustrated by the Sherlock Holmes stories. The ratiocinative novel operates on a shared assumption between reader and writer that there is a normal order to things that is temporarily disrupted by a crime. In this type of novel, the detective applies reason and logic to the problem, solves the crime, banishes disorder, and restores things to their usual ordered condition. In the period following World War I, many readers and writers began to view the world differently: for them, crime could no longer be viewed simply as an aberration from the normal scheme of things, it was an integral part of it (Geherin, 1980:47).
The earliest example of the hard-boiled detective was Nick Carter who first appeared in a dual-titled novelette called "The Old Detective’s Pupil; or. The Mysterious Crime of Madison Square" in Street and Smith's New York Weekly on Sept. 18, 1886. The stories of Nick Carter were originally written by John Coryell and later written by Frederick Marmaduke Van Rensselaer Dey, who wrote a Carter story a 36 weeK for seventeen years (Ruehlmann, 1974:49). NicK Carter was created nearly thirty years before the beginning of World War I, but in many ways he symbolized the school of detective fiction that arose in response to this war. While NicK Carter was unique before the war, after the war, NicK Carter was only one in a series of tough guy, hard-boiled detectives. The major difference between the classical detective and the hard-boiled detective concerned their style of investigation. The classical detective relied solely on his or her (but mostly his) own powers of deductive reasoning, or as John Cawelti observes, "The classical detective's role was to use his superior intellect and psychological insight to reveal the hidden guilt that the police seemed unable to discover" (Cawelti, 1976:143). The hard-boiled detective, on the other hand, was usually blessed with, at best, a slight intuitive edge over the other characters, and his or her (but again, mostly his) success in solving the mystery was due largely to hard, physical worK. The adjective "hard-boiled" derived from the detective's personality. Whereas the classical detective was sensitive, intelligent, introspective, and unfailingly polite, the hard-boiled detective was tough, cynical, aggressive, street-smart, and prone to violent outbursts.
One of the first post-war detectives from the hard-boiled school was Race Williams, who by his own description was 37 nothing more than a tough "middleman—just a halfway house between the cops and the crooKs" (Ruehlmann, 1974:58),
Created by Carroll John Daly, Race Williams's first story was called "Knights of the Open Palm" and was published in the June 1, 1923 issue of Black Mask magazine (Geherin, 1980:1). Black magazine was one of the action "pulp" magazines, so-called because of their wood pulp origin. Throughout the 1920s and '30s, Blacls Mask and its competitors enjoyed a huge audience of readers who relished the short stories and novelettes contained in these cheap-paper, newsstand anthologies (Ruehlmann, 1974:57). Approximately four months after the appearance of Race
Williams, Dashiell Hammett published his first story in
ElSSli Mask magazine (Geherin, 1980:1). Hammett, a former Pinkerton agent, created a character known as the
Continental Op, a security agency operative who appeared in thirty-six stories, most of which were printed in Black Mask and eight of which were later revised into two full-length
Op novels (Ruehlmann, 1974:58). In addition to the Continental Op, Hammett also created Sam Spade, the hard-boiled hero in The M^lt;ese Fa 1 coin, and Nick Charles, the supposedly retired sleuth in The Thin Man. Hammett wrote far fewer stories than many of the other hard-boiled writers. As one student of Hammett reports, his creative peak seemed to have occurred between 1927 and 1930 when four of his five full-length stories (Red Harvest. The Pain 38
Curse, The Maltese Fa1coin, and The Glass Ke^) were first published in serial form. In 1930, Dashiell Hammett was thirty-six years old; "...by the age of forty he was finished as an author and the final twenty-six years of his life saw him gradually moving away from writing altogether" (Glover, 1979:22). But despite Hammett’s relatively short tenure as a mystery writer, his influence on the genre was profound. As John Cawelti reports. Several hard-boiled writers emerged more or less simultaneously with Hammett in the pages of Black during the twenties, but Hammett was the most important. It was he who licked the new story into shape, gave it much of its distinctive style and atmosphere, developed its urban setting, invented many of its most effective plot patterns, and above all, articulated the hard-boiled hero, creating that special mixture of toughness and sentimentality, of cynical understatement and eloquence that would remain the stamp of the hard-boiled detective, even in his cruder avatars (Cawelti, 1976:163).
The host of Hammett imitators in Black Mask included many writers who are now famous in their own right. Erie Stanley Gardner, using his early pseudonym of Charles M. Green; Lester Dent, who under the pseudonym of Kenneth Robertson wrote the Doc Savage stories; and Raymond Chandler, whose first story, "Blackmailers Don’t Shoot," was published in Black Mask in 1933, were only a few of the many mystery writers whose work appeared in Black Mask. which, at the time, was considered to be the cream of the crop of pulps3 (Symons, 1972:136). 39
Part of the success of B^ack Mask has to be attributed to Joseph T. Shaw, the reigning editor of this magazine between the years of 1920 and 1936. Shaw promoted what was called a
"corporate style" of writing for Black Mask authors: crisp, tersely told tales of violent action (Symons, 1972:136). Among the scores of detective magazines which also shared success during these years were The Strand. Detective Fiction Weekly, Street and Smith's Detective Story, Action
Detective, Greater Gangster Stories. Dime Detective, Nickel
Detect jive, Black Aces. Black Book Detective. and Crime Busters (Ruehlmann, 1974:57).
Some of the mystery authors who appeared with Hammett on the pages of the pulps included Cornell Hopley-Woolrich, who wrote under three names (Cornell Woolrich, William Irish, and George Hopley), James M. Cain, whose The Postmag Always
Rings Twice became a mystery classic, W.R. Burnett, and Jonathan Latimer (Symons, 1972:141). All of these authors achieved a measure of fame in the mystery world, but none of them became as famous as Dashiell Hammett or three later mystery writers, each of whom appears to have been greatly influenced by the Hammett style: Raymond Chandler (creator of Philip Marlowe), Mickey Spillane (creator of Mike Hammer), and Ross Macdonald (creator of Lew Archer). The works of Chandler, Spillane, and Macdonald typify the direction of the mystery novel, especially in the post-World War II period. 40
After World War II, the hard-boiled novel became the standard mystery fare, and the classical riddle story died out almost entirely, with only a few exceptions, Agatha Christie being the most notable. Once again, the impetus behind this movement could be traced to social factors. As Julian Symons explains:
Dy the end of World War II, the reassurances offered by the classical kind of detective story had become very shaky indeed. The social and religious structure of society had changed so much that its assumptions seemed preposterous. The pretense that the world was static could no longer be maintained. The detective story with its closed circle of suspects and its rigid rules had always been a fairy tale, but the point and pleasure of fairy tales is that by exercising the imagination one can believe them to be true. In the postwar world, this sort of story changed from a fairy tale to an absurdity (Symons, 1972:12).
The classical detective story, as was mentioned earlier, was based on the shared assumption between writer and reader that the world is a rational, reasonable place. The crime that occurs in the classical mystery story disrupts the normal social order. The classical detective is called to the scene, and after a very logical investigation, he, or she (as in the case of Agatha Christie’s Hiss Marple), solves the mystery, thereby bringing about a return to normality in the social order. In other words, in the classical mystery story, the detective is always able to show "...that the corruption is isolated and specific rather than general and endemic to the social world of the story"
(Cawelti, 1976:147). World War I strained this idyllic view 41 of the world, and the Depression and World War II dealt it the final blow. The type of mystery novel that would succeed in the post-World War II period, with very few exceptions, acknowledged the fact that the world was a rough and tough place where evil and corruption existed as part of the social order. As one observer notes.
The society in which (Philo) Vance, (Ellery) Queen, and even Charlie Chan operated was an essentially rational world in which crime could be solved by the man of logic. Postwar society was different. In a world of paid-off cops, corrupt politicians, rich crooks, expensive call girls, and contract murder, logic did not necessarily work. The question of who put the weed-killer in Aunt Metty*s bouillon was of little interest compared to that of who would (or could) breaK the power of the gangster czar (Nye, 1970:257).
The hard-boiled novel which began after World War I and enjoyed explosive success after World War II is still popular today. Rut the modern mystery novel has experienced some changes since the post-second-world-war period. The name change from detective stories to mystery stories is indicative of the type of changes which this genre has undergone since the mid-1940s. While through the early forties the mystery formula was rather standard with minor plot variations distinguishing one story from the next, in the modern mystery world the boundaries have expanded considerably. The Mystery Writers of America, an organization of mystery authors, notes that there are five basic categories of mystery novels: the puzzle mystery,
"the classic, simon-pure detective story. in which the 42 author poses a problem and sets up a fair-play game of wits
between detective and reader" (practitioners including Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen, John Dickson Carr); the
hard-boiled mystery. "occasionally a puzzle, usually a whodunit, but primarily an adventure story of the violent physical exploits of a vigorous super-hero, generally a
private detective" (Michael Collins, Ross Macdonald, Mickey Spillane); the straight mystery, "a perfectly straight novel of character analysis and character interplay that happens
to concern a crime, usually murder" (Nicolas Freeling, Julian Symon, George Simenon); the novel of pursuit, including the spy story. "usually a story of espionage but
sometimes of private excitement in which the question is not Why? or H2H* but What will happen next? or How can he get out of this? (Robert Ludlum, Len Deighton, Eric Ambler);
and, lastly, the whodunit, "a story whose plot is still the solution of a crime, with a surprise ending (in intent, at least) and usually with a detective, but with little stress
on deductions or challenging the reader's wits and primary emphasis on the emotions and reactions of the characters" (Lawrence Block, Robert L. Pike, Mary Roberts
Rinehart) (Mystery Writers of America, 1976:14-17). Most of these five mystery types can be further divided
into sub-types as well. For example, Bruce Cassiday
identifies nine separate sub-types of the "durable old whodunit" (Cassiday, 1976:18-19). These sub-types include: 43 the socio-political mystery (as written by Dorothy Salisbury Davis, Jack Higgins, Chester Himes, and Peter Driscoll, among others); the police procedural mystery (Ed McBain, Lawrence Treat, Hillary Waugh, John Creasey, Lesley Egan); the private eye mystery (Rex Stout, John D. MacDonald, Dick Francis, George Harmon Coxe); the psychological mystery
(Stanley Ellin, Margaret Millar, John Farris); the mechanistic mystery (Paul E. Erdman, Frederick Forsythe, Michael Crichton); the vigilante mystery (Joe Gores, Brian
Garfield, Bill Pronzini); the caper myster (Eric Ambler, Richard Stark, Lionel White); the camp mystery (Donald E. Westlake, Ed McBain, Robert L. Fish); and the period mystery
(John Dickson Carr, Robert Von Gulick, Nicholas Meyer).
The Role or Function of the Mystery Novel The changes that have occurred in the mystery novel since its beginning in the 1840s have largely been associated with changing social conditions. World War I, the Depression, World War II, and the economic uncertainties of these eras changed the mystery formula in a very definite manner. Yet, at the same time, the message or moral behind the mystery story has hardly changed at all.
The early detective novels were, almost without exception, of the "Crime doesn't pay" variety, or as one observer notes, "One of the most marked features of the
Anglo-American detective story is that it is strongly on the side of law and order” (Symons, 1972:9). The classical 44 detective, as well as the early hard-boiled heroes, almost always apprehended the criminal offender, and usually this apprehension occurred well before any major tears in the social fabric were incurred. The message or moral behind this type of story was one of reassurance. At the end of each story, the social order would be restored, the status quo would be maintained (with the obvious exception of the unfortunate victim whose life had to be sacrificed to show that the social order will prevail), and the guilty would be fingered for punishment. The reader could close the book secure in the knowledge that those who try to disturb the social order will be caught and punished. The crime or crimes in these stories might at first appear to be symptomatic of some general malaise gripping the entire society, but by the end of the story it would be abundantly apparent that the corruption which began the story was specific and isolated. As John Cawelti explains:
The special drama of crime in the classical detective story lies in the way it threatens the serene domestic circles of bourgeois life with anarchy and chaos. The official guardians of this order, the police, turn out to be inefficient bunglers, and the finger of suspicion points to everybody. The ordered rationality of society momentarily seems a flimsy surface over a seething pit of guilt and disorder. Then the detective intervenes and proves that the general suspicion is false. He proves the social order is not responsible for the crime because it was the act of a particular individual with his own private motives (Cawelti, 1976:96). 45
At the end of each story, the social order would be vindicated. This was especially true of the classical detective stories before and after World War I. While the early hard-boiled stories usually ended with the guilty party or parties being punished, the picture of the social order which was presented in these stories was not always pleasant, with the best example probably being the utterly corrupt society of Personville (aptly nicknamed "Poisonville" by the Continental Op) in Dashiell Hammett's Harvest. One would have to look long and hard to find a society like Poisonville in the classical detective stories. The authors of the classical detective novels did not see society in the same way as Dashiell Hammett. Julian Symons reports that most of the early American and British mystery writers were "unquestionably Right Wing" (Symons, 1972:104).
This conservative bent undoubtedly affected their mystery writing. As Symons explains: It would have been unthinkable for them to create a Jewish detective, or a working-class one aggressively conscious of his origins, for such figures would have seemed to them quite incongruous. It would have been equally impossible for them to have created a policeman who beat up suspects, although this was the time when American newspapers wrote about the third degree. Acknowledging that such things happened, they would have thought it undesirable to write about them, because the police were the representatives of established society, and so ought not to be shown behaving badly. And although an unemployed man might be seen sympathetically if he was trying to be helpful to his social betters, he was usually regarded as somebody who just refused to work. The social order in these stories was as fixed and mechanical as that of the Incas (Symons, 1972:104-9). 46 The social order in the hard-boiled stories was less fixed and considerably less innocent, but the rule that ’'Crime doesn't pay" still held in the end. At the conclusion of almost all hard-boiled tales, the mystery would be solved and the criminal perpetrators would be punished (although sometimes this punishment would occur outside of the law). Exceptions to this rule were few and far between, for as one contemporary reviewer of murder mystery novels notes, "No American fiction is as relentlessly moralizing as the private-eye novel" (Prescott, 1982:72). In other words, the basic message or moral of the mystery story has not changed substantially in the movement from the classical to the hard-boiled formula. "Crime doesn't pay"; "Lawbreakers will be punished" (one way or another); and, "The social order will prevail" seem to be the basic themes underlying these stories. Clearly, these messages act to shore up the social system or, as John Reilly, using Marxian phraseology, contends, it is
"...obvious that the dime-novel detectives are merely part of the relentless process illustrating the power of a ruling class to provide ideas for a culture” (Reilly, 1973:162).
Reilly's contention that mystery stories function to maintain the social order has been echoed by other students of the genre. In fact, as one observer notes, the thesis that mystery stories are "quite literally eminently respectable, because they are there to lend support to 47 values that are absolutely central to modern Western civilization" (Palmer, 1973:137) has defined the dominant approach to this field of fiction right up until the present
(Glover, 1979:35). In this regard, detective stories and mystery novels have been seen to play an "integrative or even politically conservative function" in society (Glover,
1979:35). According to this argument, the deviance which occurs in the murder mystery novel actually serves to reinforce the norms and rules of the society, inasmuch as this deviance is inevitably exposed and the perpetrator punished. In this sense, the crimes committed in the mystery novel serve a social purpose by highlighting the social concensus against these very acts. As Jerry Palmer notes, "In the modern thriller, the representation of deviant acts is used to construct a component of the consensus"' (Palmer, 1973:137). In short, the majority opinion in the analysis of mystery stories would argue that an examination of the mystery story would substantiate Milton Albrecht's third hypothesis on the relationship between literature and society: the social control theory. This theory posited that literature can act as a mechanism of social control in a society by functioning to "maintain and stabilize, if not to justify and sanctify, the social order" (Albrecht, 1954:425). In other words, using Albrecht's theory as a guideline, one could hypothesize that the mystery story serves the social order 48 and maintains social control by presenting an idealized picture of society in which crime is always punished, the good are always rewarded, and the bad receive their just desserts. People who read mystery stories internalize these messages, and, as a consequence, the social order is reinforced.
The very term ''majority opinion1' suggests that there is a minority opinion as well, and in this case there is more than one. One minority opinion, which seems to be shared largely by the people who actually write mystery stories would argue that Milton Albrecht's first hypothesis—the reflection theory-better fits the contemporary relationship between the mystery story and society. While few mystery writers would try to argue that the fictional worlds of Monsieur Dupin or Sherlock Holmes or Charlie Chan greatly approximated the actual society of their time-periods, many mystery writers believe that the beginning of the hard-boiled trend marked a new era of realism in the mystery story, Raymond Chandler, the creator of Philip Marlowe, believes that the introduction of realism into the detective story began with Dashiell Hammett:
Hammett gave murder back to the kinds of people that commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse; and with the means at hand, not with handwrought duelling pistols, curare, and tropical fish. He put these people down on paper as they are, and he made them talk and think in the language they customarily used for these purposes (Chandler, 1975:234). 49
The idea that murder mysteries reflect society has been echoed by the Mystery Writers of America who propose that. In a distant day, when people wonder what life was like in the twentieth century, they may research the forgotten books of mystery writers, and they will mine gold. They will find that the vast body of mystery writing reflects the contemporary scene as accurately and honestly as a Cornedje Humajne could possibly do5 (Mystery Writers of America, 1976:5).
A second minority opinion has been presented by D. Glover who argues that mystery stories, far from serving to maintain the social order, actually challenge this order by displaying, in a literary fashion, the lack of social consensus within society. Glover, in a study of Dashiell Hammett's works, argues that the very contradictions articulated by Hammett's novels "suggest that the thriller, like any other cultural artefact or product, is an ideological medium and as such is subtly interpenetrated by social and political conflicts deriving from the wider socio-historical milieu" (Glover, 1979:35). The logical conclusion that follows from Glover's statement is that the mystery story, by presenting on a literary plane the "social and political conflicts" inherent in the "socio-historical milieu," may actually bring about social or political change through formal recognition of problems. Although Glover himself did not articulate this position in his study, he did make mention of the detective stories written by Joseph Hansen (Fadeout, 1973, Death Claims. 1974, Troublemaker. 50
1975, Gravedigger. 1982), who has consciously aimed at the "assertion of gay self-identity and life-style through the techniques of popular writing" (Glover, 1979:35).
A third, and final, minority opinion is similar to the majority opinion in that it too perceives the mystery novel as performing a social control function in the society, but the difference between the two opinions rests in how social control is perceived to be achieved. While the majority opinion contends that mystery novels offer support for the prevailing social system and thereby reinforce this system, the minority opinion argues that mystery novels serve a social control function by diverting hostility or discontentment in the reading populace. One of the leading proponents of this opinion is John G. Cawelti, who argues that mystery novels, and other formula novels,
seem to be one way in which individuals in a culture act out certain unconscious or repressed needs, or express in an overt and symbolic fashion certain latent motives which they must give expression to, but cannot face openly (Cawelti, 1973:33).
In other words, Cawelti, and the other adherents to this opinion, believe that mystery novels function as a mechanism of social control by diverting the reader's repressed needs or covert motives. As was mentioned earlier, Lewis Coser's work on social conflict discussed the existence of "substitute objects" or "safety-valve institutions" which 51
operate to divert hostility in a society. Coser proposed that
In cases in which conflict behavior against the original object is blocked (1) hostile feelings may be deflected upon substitute objects and ...(2) substitute satisfaction may be attained through mere tension release (Coser, 1956:40).
Cawelti and others would argue that (1) mystery novels serve the purpose of substitute objects in our society, and (2) readers of mystery novels achieve "substitute satisfaction" through the tension release generated by the successful resolution of the mystery in the story.* The idea
that mystery novels can act to deflect both tension and hostility from their original objects has been echoed by other students of the genre, including William Ruehlmann who
argues that the popularity of the crime novel is a reflection of the extent of public frustration and rage against modern day "problems without solutions" (Ruehlmann,
1974:12). As Ruehlmann opines, "The fact is that private eye novels are vigilante literature, and their peculiar appeal lies in reader identification with a hero whose
brutality avenges not only fictional transgressions but American urban frustration as well" (Ruehlmann, 1974:9). The study of the mystery story in the sociology of
literature has largely focused on the two areas covered in this chapter: the history of the mystery, and the purpose or function served by this type of literature. The role of
women characters in the mystery story has received only a 52 small amount of attention. Before examining the research that has been conducted on women in mystery novels, it would be instructive to look at the role of women characters in other forms of popular literature. ENDNOTES
1This school of thought represents the minority opinion in this particular dispute. Most of the students of this field contend that the mystery story’s beginning can be discovered in the 19th century. The Key to resolving this dispute seems to lie in one’s definition of the mystery story. If the mystery story is defined as merely a novel about crime, then the antecedents of the modern mystery novel can be traced bacK to the beginning of literature because crime has always been a subject of fascination for the populace (Cawelti, 1976:52). But if the mystery story, by definition, involves something more than just the occurrence of a crime, if it involves the process by which the crime is solved as well, then the mystery story cannot be traced back to Homer's early works, and, by the same line of reasoning, some more recent novels focusing on crime must also be excluded from this genre. In short, while all mystery novels deal with crime, not all novels dealing with crime can be classified as mysteries. In the mystery novel, crime is merely "the means to an end which is—detection" (Howard Haycraft, quoted from Symons, 1972:3). The three minimal conditions necessary for a murder mystery novel, which were outlined earlier (pp. 26-27), clearly indicate that the subject of the murder mystery is the inquiry following the crime rather than the crime itself.
Probably the classic example of a novel dealing with crime which is not a mystery, by definition, would be Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. In this story two murders are committed, and the murderer is stalked by a police detective, but the focus is not on the solving of the crime, but rather on the impact of the murder on the murderer himself. As one critic explains. Crime and Punishment is not structured around the inquiry, but around the change in the murderer's soul. What remains concealed from the reader and the protagonist is not any particular set of past facts but whether or not the protagonist will come to feel the necessity of confessing his crime and accepting his punishment (Cawelti, 1976:132-3). Although Reilly deals specifically with the establishment of American police forces, other sources have indicated that the situation in America was not dissimilar to the situation in England and elsewhere, once the
53 54
Industrial Revolution created a new "element of population inherently unstable as to means of livelihood and place of residence" (Brynes, 1946:164).
£Black Mask has since been subsumed into Ellery Queen * s Mystery Magazine which is still sold at newsstands today (Ruehlmann, 1974:57). ♦This idea harks back to Durkheim's belief that an unanticipated consequence of crime is a strengthening of the normative consensus in the society in which the crime occurs. According to Durkheim's theory, crime is a normal (meaning inevitable) part of every society. As Durkheim observed, "Crime is normal because a society exempt from it is utterly impossible" (Durkheim, 1964b:67). Crime exists in every society, but the consequences of crime are not all negative:
To classify crime among the phenomena of normal sociology is not to say merely that it is an inevitable, although regrettable phenomenon, due to the incorrigible wickedness of men; it is to affirm that it is a factor in public health, an integral part of all healthy societies (Durkheim, 1964b:67).
Crime contributes to public health by creating a collective feeling against the criminal or the criminal act. As Durkheim explained, a criminal act "...arouses in those who have evidence of it or who learn of its existence the same indignation. Everybody is attacked; consequently, everybody opposes the attack. Not only is the reaction general, but it is collective, which is not the same thing" (Durkheim, 1964a:102). When a norm or law is violated, the community reacts collectively, and this collective reaction strengthens the community as a whole. In Durkheim's words, "Crime brings together upright consciences and concentrates them" (Durkheim, 1964a:102). Crime fiction may perform a similar function in a society by portraying crime and criminals in such a way as to elicit negative reactions on the part of the reader, thereby strengthening the collective sentiment against such socially-disruptive acts and actors.
5Further evidence attesting to the mystery writers' belief in the realism of their craft can be seen in a recent gathering sponsored by the Mystery Writers of America at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. The meeting, as reported in the May 7, 1982 edition of the New Yopk Times, was for a seminar entitled "Crime: Those Who Write It and Those Who Fight It." At this seminar the mystery writers heard lectures by police detectives. 55 district attorneys, and others, and had a chance to question the speakers in order to discover exactly how mysteries are solved in the "real world." Examples of the questions asked included: "What impact does the introduction of video have on a suspect's willingness to talk?" "Does the Medical Examiner report directly to the police or district attorney?" "Do politicians have cases 'fixed'?" *The question of why the tension release of the mystery resolution is pleasurable for the reader is a question with no definitive answer. One interesting, but certainly dated, hypothesis on this question was advanced by Geraldine Pederson-Krag who argued that the attraction to mystery stories can be traced back to unresolved infantile feelings about the primal scene (Pederson-Krag, 1949). Although Pederson-Krag first advanced her theory nearly thirty-five years ago, it is worthy of mention because the primal scene explanation of adult fascination with murder mysteries is still being discussed today (See, Cawelti, 1976:134; Most and Stowe, 1983:13-20; Symons, 1972:6-7).
According to Pederson-Krag, the intense curiosity which is an inherent part of mystery-story reading stems in part from the reader's repressed memory of the intensely curious primal scene. Pederson-Krag argued that mystery stories allow the reader to repeat, in a disguised fantasy, the primal scene experience, but this time with a more gratifying conclusion. As she observed. Whether the reaction to the primal scene has been denial or acceptance, with or without participation, the repressed memory is in every instance charged to some degree with painful affect. The mystery story attempts to present a more satisfying, less painful primal scene from the standpoint of the unconscious (Pederson-Krag, 1949:212). The mystery novel contains, in a symbolic fashion of course, all of the elements of the primal scene. The murder represents parental intercourse, the murder victim is
the parent for whom the reader (the child) had negative oedipal feelings. The clues in the story, disconnected, inexplicable and trifling, represent the child's growing awareness of details it had never understood, such as the family sleeping arrangements, nocturnal sounds, stains, incomprehensible adult jokes and remarks. The criminal of the detective drama appears innocuous until the final page. In real life he was the parent toward whom the child's positive oedipal feelings were directed, the one whom the child 56 wished least of all to imagine participating in a secret crime (Pederson-Krag, 1949:209).
Within this fantasy, the reader assumes the role of the detective which thus allows the reader to gratify his or her own "infantile curiosity with impunity, redressing completely the helpless inadequacy and anxious guilt unconsciously remembered from childhood" (Pederson-Krag, 1949:214).
While Pederson-Krag's theory on why people read mystery stories seems a bit farfetched, it is not actually all that different from some of the other theories which have been advanced on this subject. For instance, another theory proposes that the pleasure experienced from mystery story reading derives from the reader's own sense of guilt or sin. In the mystery novel, the character whose guilt seems most obvious often proves to be innocent, while the character who seems to be totally above suspicion turns out to be guilty of murder. The reader, being human and fallible, and, according to this theory, ridden with hidden guilt, identifies with the seemingly guilty character, the character who is vindicated in the end (Holquist, 1971:144; Ruehlmann, 1974:7; Symons, 1972:8).
A very similar theory, also focusing on guilt, posits that the detective story has taken the place of religion in society. This theory is based on the idea that the rise of mystery novels parallels the decline of religion in society and that the two events are not wholly unrelated. As the British poet C. Day Lewis (who used the psuedonyra of Nicholas Blake for his mystery writing) explained:
When a religion has lost its hold upon men's hearts they must have some other outlet for the sense of guilt... (the future anthropologist) will call attention to the pattern of the detective novel, as highly formalized as that of a religious ritual, with its initial necessary sin (the murder), its victim, its high priest (the detective). He will conjecture—and rightly—that the devotee identified himself both with the detective and the murderer, representing the dark sides of his own nature. He will note a significant parallel between the formalized denouement of the detective novel and the Christian conception of the Day of Judgement, when with a flourish of trumpets, the mystery is made plain and the goats are separated from the sheep (C. Day Lewis, as quoted in Holquist, 1971:144).
Finally, a slightly more contemporary theory suggests that mystery novel readers are engaged in a form of literary 57 escapism (Cawelti, 1976:15-16; Ruehlmann, 1974:5). The mystery novel with its abundance of confusing and deceptive clues and its cast of prevaricative and suspicious characters resembles a microcosm of the modern world, a treacherous place filled with danger and uncertainty. The pleasure in mystery reading is in the final few pages when the mystery is solved. In these last pages, the microcosm achieves a level of clarity rarely duplicated in the real world. Some students of the genre contend that it is these final moments of precision and clarity that provide the escape the mystery reader desires. In other words, the excitement of the mystery novel is pleasurable precisely because this excitement is capped by a predictable conclusion. The reader Knows that the conclusion will inevitably result in the resolution of the mystery, so he or she is free to enjoy the story without worrying about the ending, a situation very dissimilar to real life in most instances. Clearly this final theory can be seen as supportive of the social control theory of the relationship between literature and society, inasmuch as the mystery novel, by providing an escape from the routine troubles of everyday life, is functioning as a "safety-valve institution" within society. Chapter III WOMEN CHARACTERS IN POPULAR LITERATURE
A study of the mystery story is a study in popular
culture. Mystery stories, along with other genre-type fiction, such as western novels, gothic romances, and science fiction, are popular literature. Leslie Fiedler
defines popular literature as a Kind of literature that is not merely mass produced and mass distributed but is written Iq. order to be mass produced and mass distributed, or at least, it is written in response, negative or positive, to the possibility of being mass produced and mass distributed (Fiedler, 1979:198).
The underlying point of this definition is that popular
literature, like all of popular culture, is produced for a mass audience. In fact, popular culture only developed after the introduction of mass society in the late 18th
century (Nye, 1970). Prior to this period, culture existed in two forms: high and folk culture, or as Russel Nye explains, before the emergence of popular culture in the
late 18th century, "there had always been two artistic traditions—the high and low comedy of Greece, the drama and circuses of Rome, medieval cathedral plays and street fairs. Renaissance court-drama and tavern farces—separated by lay and ecclesiastical controls" (Nye, 1970:1).
58 59
The two artistic traditions became three in the late 18th century due to the tremendous growth in population, coupled with the subsequent concentration of socially, economically, and culturally similar people into cohesive urban or "near-urban” geographical areas, thereby creating, for the first time, mass society (Nye, 1970:1-2). The rise in
literacy that accompanied these other changes created a new audience for culture. Popular culture arose to fill this emerging need for mass entertainment.
Definitions of popular culture abound. Ray Browne defines popular culture as "all those elements of life which are not narrowly intellectual or creatively elitist and which are generally though not necessarily disseminated through the mass media" (Browne, 1972:10). Russel Nye claims, "Popular art is folk art aimed at a wider audience, in a somewhat more self-conscious attempt to fill that audience’s expectations, an art more aware of the need for selling the product, more consciously adjusted to the median
taste" (Nye, 1970:3). Thomas Kando defines popular culture as "the typical cultural and recreational activities of typical segments of a society" (Kando, 1975a:«l). Herbert Cans sees popular culture as a series of "taste cultures" each of which consists of
values, the cultural forms which express these values: music, art, design, literature, drama, comedy, poetry, criticism, news, and the media in which these are expressed—books, magazines, newspapers, records, films and television programs, paintings and sculpture, architecture, and insofar as ordinary consumer goods also 60
express aesthetic values or functions, furnishings, clothes, appliances, and automobiles as well. In addition, taste cultures include the values, forms, and media of the natural and social sciences and philosophy—including their commercial popularizations and even "folk wisdom." Finally, taste cultures have political values; although they do not often express them explicitly, they do so implicitly, and even when not, they frequently have political implications (Cans, 1974:10-11).
While no two of these definitions are exactly alike or,
for that matter, even fairly similar, they all express a vision of popular culture as something which is large and broadly-based, if somewhat nebulous in its boundaries.1
Popular culture, as defined by most of its practitioners, encompasses a far-flung empire of ideas and topics. Yet, despite the widely-varying scope of subject areas within
this field of inquiry, the early studies of popular culture demonstrated a relatively rigid and rather limiting concern with the comparative value of high culture versus popular culture, or what George Lewis calls the "'great debates' of what culture of varying 'levels* is actually 'worth,' and how it uplifted or debased those who came into contact with
it" (Lewis, 1982:82).2 It wasn't until the 1960s that the modern study of popular culture "as a field of inquiry" began (Vartanian, 1977:280). This modern study of popular culture employed a more empirical approach which, while not abandoning theory entirely, opened the field to research on new and exciting topics in the ever-expanding cultural realm. As Richard Peterson notes, the "Popular Culture 61 studies movement was founded in the 1960s on the easily shaped sands of eclecticism” (Peterson, 1977:385). One of the more widely researched areas in the modern study of popular culture is popular literature. Earlier, Leslie Fiedler’s definition of popular literature as literature that is written to be mass produced and mass distributed was noted. Fiedler also provides a useful distinction between high literature and popular literature. This distinction, which was first noted by Edgar Allan Poe in a review of a work by James Fenimore Cooper, rests on the idea that "there is a certain kind of book...which is forgotten though its author is remembered; and there is a certain kind of book whose author is forgotten though the work is remembered" (Fiedler, 1979:200) . The former is high literature; the latter is popular literature. As examples,
Fiedler notes that Ernest Hemingway is not soon forgotten, while Lt. FJenry and Jake Barnes are. On the other hand, Sherlock Holmes is an unforgettable character, but only the devoted fan remembers that his creator was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Likewise, Tarzan will be remembered long after Edgar Rice Burroughs is forgotten.
The reason why the characters and plots in popular literature are more memorable than the authors has to do with the type of literature that qualifies for this category. Traditionally, the "most popular" type of popular literature has been formula fiction (Weibel, 1977:8), which 62 was defined earlier as fiction that employs literary formulas. These formulas provide archetypes or patterns of
conventions in terms of plots, characters, and themes to be followed in each novel. Mystery novels are a type of formula fiction. Other formulas include the western story, the gothic romance,
science fiction, the horror story, and, to a lesser extent, the best-selling social melodrama. (Cawelti, 1976:1-2). Popular literature authors employ formulas to maximize
the popularity of their worK. As Russel Nye states, "The popular artist...is subject primarily to the law of supply and demand; his aim is to win the largest possible audience
in the marketplace" (Nye, 1970:5). Literary formulas enhance the marketability of a work by providing an interested audience. Popular literature authors and
publishers are well aware of this fact. In any form of popular culture, established formulas provide a measure of marketability which popular culture producers are often
reluctant to relinquish. As Clinton Sanders notes, commercial uncertainty is the central problem confronting producers of popular culture. It is difficult to predict with any degree of surety the ingredients of commercially successful popular materials. Consequently, when a certain formula proves to be popular with consumers, production "gatekeepers" (those members of the production organization who make key decisions about the form and content of products) systematically reproduce numerous materials with similar characteristics (Sanders, 1982:68). 63
This is not to say that formula literature is static or inflexible. Formulas can and do change, sometimes markedly.
The transformation of the classical puzzle-solver into the hard-boiled private eye is one example of a changing formula. Formula stories are the "staples" of popular literature
(Weibel, 1977:4). The role of women in formula stories has received considerable attention in recent years, although most researchers have focused on single formulas. Women in gothic romances and murder mysteries have received more attention than women in westerns or science fiction.3 Before examining the research that has been done on women in mystery novels, it will be helpful to examine the treatment of women in three other forms of formula fiction.
Westerns The origin of the western novel is a matter of dispute, and two schools of thought exist on this matter. Some observers trace the western back to the last decades of the 1700s and the first decades of the 1800s. According to this school of thought the first western was written by James Fenimore Cooper (Cawelti, 1970). Cooper produced the first of his Leatherstocking Tales, The Pioneers. in 1823. He continued the adventures of The Pioneer 's frontier scout. Natty Bumpo, in four more novels. The Last of thg Mohicans (1826), The Prairie (1827), The Pathfinder (1840), and The Deerslayer (1841). Yet, while Cooper is credited with being 64
the "creator" of the western, this school of thought also recognizes earlier, semi-fictional influences on this form of writing, such as the autobiographical narratives of
Daniel Boone in 1784 and the tall tales of Davy Crockett in the early 1800s. As W. H. Hutchinson states (in a western-flavored style):
The paternity of the "western" may seem as obscure as the sire of a bastard calf on the open range, but such is not the case. Humor is the father of the "western" as we know it: the half-horse and half-alligator tall tales of the Davy Crockett Almanacs which the grotesqueries and conventions of Brett Harte fixed in our literary tapestry (Hutchinson, 1979:33).
The second school of thought on the issue of the origin of the western asserts that "though these early roots are significant for a large understanding of popular literature about the West, the Western is primarily a product of the
dynamic climate of opinion surrounding 1900" (Etulain, 1978:355). According to this school of thought, the western arose in the first quarter of the present century in response to the growing conflict between industrial and agricultural America (Etulain, 1972:802). The West and the frontier became a symbol of the past, and western novels arose to fill the nostalgic desires generated by the social turn of events. As Richard Etulain explains. Some Americans of the Progressive Era feared that an industrial society was creeping upon them and devouring their lives. To recapture a past that was less coercive and less dominated by the city, the immigrant, and worker, they turned to the West as a palliative. The West as frontier symbolized a simpler and more primitive and pristine past 65 that many Progressives wished to retain. Confronted with a present and future that conjured a diminished individualism, they embraced, instead, a region in popular literature that was the last opportunity for democracy, individualism, and decency. The West, to these Americans, was more than a satisfactory symbol; it was an attractive emotional experience. The Western was, in large part, the literary by-product of this haunting and fractured experience (Etulain, 1973:719).
Adherents to this school of thought credit Owen Wister, the author of the 1902 and 1903 best-selling novel. The Virginian. with the creation of the "modern western.•' Wister was followed by a host of other authors, including two famous western writers, Zane Grey and Emerson Hough, both of whom produced a series of western best sellers. Whether one dates the western back to the 1800s or to the
1900s, the important point to understand is that the western that emerged in the 1900s, the "modern western,” as it has been called, expressed a conservative appreciation of an idealized past on the frontier. The West in these westerns served as a symbol of a simpler era before urbanization, industrialization, immigration, and other concerns of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Not surprisingly, then, the characters portrayed in these westerns were of a highly stereotyped nature.
The western is, above all else, an adventure story. The formula for this story centers mostly on the landscape.
Many different plots and themes can be used in a western as long as they include some sort of basic challenge for the 66
hero to confront on a western terrain. As John Cawelti explains, the formulaic "element that most clearly defines the western is the symbolic landscape in which it takes
place and the influence this landscape has on the character and actions of the hero" (Cawelti, 1976:193). In its simplest sense, the Western boils down to a story
of good guys versus bad guys in an old west locale. Old-fashioned values and virtues abound and almost always emerge victorious. As veteran western writer Henry Wilson
Allen (also known to western fans as Will Henry and Clay Fisher) notes, the popular western plot "presents a precut slice of homespun life which is a gallant trial of good against evil in a perilous place and time where bravery and clean intent will not be matched by cowardice and dishonor" (Allen, as quoted in Nye, 1970:302).
The simple right versus wrong, good versus bad, formula of the western does not leave much room for character development. The action of the story is much more important
than the characters, who generally assume a stereotypical form suited to the simple formula of the western. As Etulain explains, "The Western is an adventure story, set in the West with major emphasis on action and romance. Its characters are nearly always strictly controlled, that is, they frequently fit into 'good' and 'bad* categories and are
rarely complex or ambiguous" (Etulain, 1973:718). 67
Character control is especially strict for women characters. Although Etulain notes that the western is a story of action and romance, the romance is the romance of
the West, the romance of the terrain. Romance in the sense of romantic love between men and women is, at best, a sideplot in most westerns, of much less importance than the
ultimate confrontation between the hero and his antagonist. For the most part, women characters in western novels come in two varieties: "good" and "bad." Often these women
characters can be easily categorized into their respective camps by physical appearance alone. As W. H. Hutchinson
observes,
Woman in the "western'' was a sawdust doll, and the tags used to depict her character were obvious. If she wore calico or gingham, had hair to her waist when the braids "accidentally" came unwound, possessed a clear complexion and lustrous eyes, she was good —lineal descendant of Ouida's idealized English maidens genteelly shirting the whirlpool of life—and the hero would get his just reward in the end by claiming her hand. If she wore tights, or spangles, and worked in a saloon, she was bad and was doomed to a miserable end—either as an accomplice of the villain or as a lone figure stumbling off into scorching sun or numbing blizzard, with only her thoughts of what might have been for protection. Occasionally, she was given the chance to lead a better life—Hereafter (Hutchinson, 1979:34-35).
This dichotomization of women characters is noted
repeatedly in research on the western. John Cawelti observes that the dual nature of women in westerns resembles
the common nineteenth century dualism of the genteel blonde
and the passionate brunette. As Cawelti explains. 68
In the contemporary Western, this feminine duality shows up in the contrast between the schoolmarm and the dance-hall girl, or between the hero's Mexican or Indian mistress and the WASP girl he may ultimately marry. The dark girl is a feminine embodiment of the hero's savage, spontaneous side. She understands his deep passions, his savage code of honor, and his need to use personal violence. The schoolmarm's civilized code of behavior rejects the passionate urges and the freedom of aggression which mark this side of the hero's character. When the hero becomes involved with the schoolmarm, the dark lady must be destroyed or abandoned...(Cawelti, 1970:48).
Russel Nye reports a dichotomization of women characters
in western novels, but his dichotomy system rests on a somewhat simpler, singular criteria: good women don't have sex; bad women do (Nye, 1970:296). But bad women pay dearly
for this sex in the end. As Daryl Jones notes. If the heroine allowed herself to be seduced, she inevitably died, usually in childbirth, or simply by dwindling away under the pangs of an unbearable guilt. Heroines were spotlessly innocent; if they were anything less, they received the "wages of sin" (Jones, 1970:510).
The "good/bad—no sex/sex" simple dichotomization of
female characters in the western novel serves several purposes. In the first place, it reinforces a very traditional conception of proper female behavior, and at the same time reaffirms the "sanctity of marriage" (Jones, 1970:511). In addition, it greatly simplifies female character development, and reduces female character importance in the novel. As Hutchinson explains.
In a sense...there were only two classes of women in the free range days and everybody knew where they stood, which made for an unembarrassed social 69
life all around. Women in the "western" were not typical of their sex at large any more than the libidinous neurotics or man-eating viragos who populate today's fiction are typical. Iheir appearances in the "western" made it easier for the reader to concentrate on the action-plot without getting petticoats in his mind and thus complicating the author's tash (Hutchinson, 1979:35).
In addition to being typecast as either good or bad, women in western novels often symbolize civilization or the
Eastern establishment. Not surprisingly, considering this form of fiction arose at least in part in reaction to Eastern civilization, this is not a particularly positive portrayal. Instead, women in these novels appear as a frightening threat to a purely masculine code of honor and way of life. As John Cawelti observes, "Women are primary
symbols of civilization in the Western. It is the schoolmarm even more than the entrepreneur who signals the end of the old wilderness life" (Cawelti, 1970:47). For example in Owen Wister's classic. The Virginian. the Virginian falls in love with the town school teacher, Molly
Wood. As one observer notes, "Thus begins the conflict between the masculine code of the West and the genteel ideas of civility that Molly carries with her from the East" (Cawelti, 1976:223). In the end, Molly's civilizing ways do not triumph; against Molly's wishes, the Virginian once again resorts to personal violence to settle a score, but wins Molly's heart anyway when she "realizes that her love for him transcends all her moral compunctions" (Cawelti, 70 1976 :224) .
The threat of civilization that the women sometimes
symbolize in western novels can lead the men to unite with the Indians in an effort to stave off the destruction civilization mioht bring to the wilderness. This is a curious pairing since cowboys and indians usually display an adverserial relationship, but apparently in the war of the sexes, a man is a man, regardless of the color of his skin. As Leslie Fiedler notes, "The Real West, the West of the
West, as it were (is) a place to which White male Americans flee from their own women into the arms of Indian males, but which those White women, in their inexorable advance from coast to coast, destroy" (Fiedler, 1968:50). And lest anyone think that these particular white women are different from the average white woman, Fiedler laters clarifies exactly who these white women are as he recounts the "old, old fable of the White outcast and the noble Red Man joined together against home and mother. against the female world of civilization" (Fiedler, 1968:177; italics not in original). While women characters have been traditionally dichotomized into good and bad, and made to symbolize encroaching civilization, there is some evidence that the portrayal of women in westerns is beginning to change. For example, Richard Etulain suggests that in the more recent westerns "Women are playing a more conspicuous role; the 71
protagonists in some Westerns are women (see Jack Bickham's novels dealing with a female character named Charity Ross), and more and more writers are avoiding picturing their
heroines as merely pawns of their men" (Etulain, 1978:363). However, exactly how widespread these recent innovations in the portrayal of female characters in western novels is, or will be, remains to be seen.
Gothic Romances The birth of the gothic romance is usually credited to Horace Walpole who's novel The Castle of Otranto, published
in 1765, proved to be one of the most widely read books of the 10th century both in England and abroad (Palmer, 1979).
Around this same period, sentimentalist novels, including
Samuel Richardson's hugely successful Pamela and Clarissa, became extremely popular (Nye, 1970), and the two types of fiction—gothic and sentimental—intermingled to some extent. The sentimentalist tradition enjoyed a brief but intense period of popularity before fading from the literary scene in the early 1830s (Weibel, 1977). The gothic romance tradition also began to fade after its initial popularity in the 18th and early 19th centuries, but it has experienced a surprising resurgence in the mid-20th century. After years of quiet sales and a relatively low readership, the gothic tradition re-emerged as a literary power with the publication, around 1960, of two extremely popular gothic 72 novels: Mary Stewart's Nine Coaches Waiting and Victoria Holt's Mistress of Mellyn (Duffey, 1971). Since 1960, the
''modern gothic" has enjoyed a tremendous growth in popularity. Many large publishers have established divisions devoted entirely to gothic romance novels, while other publishers specializing solely in gothic romances have sprung to life.4 The modern gothic romance can take several forms. Alice Turner identifies four major types of modern gothic romances: the historical romance, the classic romance, the traditional gothic romance, and the regency romance (Turner,
1978) . The differences between these four types stem mainly in time and place. Historical romances, as their name implies, take place in an earlier period in history. Regency romances involve a royal setting during the reign of
George IV. Classic romances occur in a contemporary time period, and traditional gothics are set in the 19th century and generally resurrect the "brooding doomladen atmosphere" of the early gothics (Palmer, 1979:122). Despite the differences in name, and time and locale, the formula for the modern gothic romance varies little from novel to novel. As Kathryn Weibel explains.
The basic plot line of all the romances goes as follows: An inexperienced young woman meets an enigmatic and commanding older man and they get off to a bad start. Anywhere from three encounters to several months of constant companionship later, the heroine realizes she loves the hero but this only increases her distress, either because she 1) knows for a certainty he doesn't love her (the Harlequin 73
romances
As this formula outline makes clear, the modern gothic is basically a story of the interaction between a man, the hero, and a woman, the heroine. Their relationship, or lack of a relationship, is the major plot of the story, but subplots involve other characters, and almost invariably include another woman, who usually competes with the heroine
for the hero’s affections. In other words, most of the modern gothic romances revolve around a triangle of characters, two women and one man. Joanna Russ provides a semi-sarcastic description of this triangle of emotions: The Super-Male (hero) is not the Heroine’s only worry. In the emotionally tangled and darkly mysterious "family" set up in our House are hints of the presence of Another Woman who is at the same time the Heroine’s double and her opposite—very often the Other Woman is the Super-Male's present wife, or dead first wife; sometimes she is the Heroine's missing cousin, or the woman the Super-Male appears to prefer to the Heroine. The Other Woman is (or was) beautiful, worldly, glamorous, immortal, flirtatious, irresponsible, and openly sexual. She may even have been (especially if she is dead) adulterous, promiscuous, hard-hearted, immoral, criminal, or even insane. If the other woman is alive, the Heroine knows—in anguish—that the Super-Male cannot possibly prefer her to this fascinating creature; if the other woman is dead, the Heroine 74
believes she cannot possibly measure up to the Super-Male’s memories (Russ, 1973:668).
The "other woman" and the heroine are generally the only major female characters in the gothic novel. The heroine almost never has any female friends or confidants in the story.* The only female/female interaction is the always strained, often openly antagonistic relationship between the heroine and the "other woman." As Kathryn Weibel remarks, "Modern romances, like much of nineteenth-century fiction, take female rivalry for granted" (Weibel, 1977:37). Modern gothic romances also promulgate a dual-natured view of women. The heroine and the other woman are easily classified into good and bad categories. The heroine is good; the other woman is bad. Goodness and badness often is based on sexuality. The heroine's sexuality is unawakened, while the other woman's sexuality has been up and about for quite some time.7 And while the other woman’s unbridled sexual passion is unquestionably a major factor in her eventual and inevitable downfall, other negative traits and characteristics help her along in her descent. The other woman is often "extremely materialistic and manipulative of others (especially men)" (Ruggiero and Weston, 1977:296). She is usually more beautiful than the heroine, but her beauty is only skin-deep, and she lacks the heroine's basic
"goodness" (Weibel, 1977:36). While the heroine is generally quite handy around the house (even the most 75
nontraditional heroine has some minimum level of domestic ability), the other woman tends to be a failure in the •’traditional feminine areas of influence such as
domesticity, motherhood, and love relationships” (Mussell,
1975:05). Yet, while the heroine is plainly the better of the two
female characters, throughout most of the story the other woman appears to be always on the brink of capturing the hero’s heart. Her ravishing beauty seems to make her more than a match for the "plainer" heroine (Mussell, 1975:85). But, in the end, virtue triumphs and the sanctity of marriage gets a moral boost. As Kay Mussell explains.
Passionate women in gothic novels usually fare badly in comparison to heroines even though they usually have superficial characteristics that make them seem enviable. However, because they fail in competition, they ultimately become negative role models, providing reinforcement for the female reader of the traditional assumptions of proper feminine behavior (exemplified by the heroine), and covertly suggesting that passionate women corrupt the sanctioned institutions of society through their failure to perform their proper domestic roles in controlling sexuality, inspiring the man to be "good," and nurturing the members of the family unit. Sexuality for women, most importantly, leads in the novels not only to corruption but also to failure in the very area where it might promise success: attraction of a man (Mussell, 1975:85).
In short, most of the modern gothic novels end with a marriage pending, if the heroine was single at the outset, or a marriage renewed, if the heroine was already in a wedded, but previously unblissful, state. The other woman 76
is rather unceremoniously dumped by the hero, who, to the heroine's surprise if not the reader's, is now ready to make a lifelong commitment to the less beautiful but more
virtuous female character in the story. As John Cawelti cogently observes, "There seems little doubt that most modern romance formulas are essentially affirmations of the ideals of monogamous marriage and feminine domesticity" (Cawelti, 1976:U2) While there seems to be little question about what moral
marital message the modern gothic seeks to impart, there is some disagreement about the way in which female characters, and in particular heroines, are portrayed in these stories.
In fact, two schools of thought appear to exist on this issue. Some researchers believe that the heroines in modern gothic romances are basically passive characters who do not act, but rather are acted upon throughout the story. The heroine is always a victim-in-waiting, with little ability to ward off trouble. As Joanna Russ claims, "The Modern
Gothic is episodic; the heroine does nothing except worry; any necessary detective work is done by other persons, often the Super-Male” (Russ, 1973:671). In-between waiting for the hero's next move, the heroine performs domestic chores. tours the local scenic areas. shops for demure but nevertheless attractive clothing. admires sundry items described in minute detail in the story. and eats. or doesn't eat. a great variety of tasty, succulent. and 77
fragrant foods. She does not prepare for the next terrible thing that is about to befall her. Ihe heroine is consistently defenseless. As a passive victim, the heroine endures numerous, and sometimes humiliating, trials and tribulations, which lead some to label this form of fiction "soft-core masochism" or "pornography for women" (Berman, 1978:37; Snitow, 1979:141), Consistent inaction in the face of pending disaster makes the heroine seem an almost-willing
victim. As Joanna Russ explains.
The apparent sado-masochism of the genre is partly an artifact of the narrative premise—that the Heroine must remain passive (or incompetent) in situations that call overwhelmingly for activity and decision; therefore any connection the Heroine has with the situation must be that of Victim. Part may be "feminine masochism" but even when the sado-masochistic overtones are strongest... the Heroine’s suffering is the principle action of the story because it is the only action she can perform (Russ, 1973:686).
The similarities between this type of heroine and the early sentimentalist heroines of the 19th century are noteworthy. As Elizabeth MacAndrew and Susan Gorsky observe (in an article entitled "Why Do They Faint and Die: The Birth of the Delicate Heroine"), the sentimentalist heroine cannot act; she is passively overcome by evil and even by reality, because action, however laudatory, sullies the lily-white hands of virtue and because such virtue as hers cannot realistically survive in a world increasingly seen as evil (MacAndrew and Gorsky, 1975:743).
Yet, while some researchers see the modern gothic heroine as a direct descendant of the passive. sentimentalist 78
leading lady, other researchers describe the modern heroine as a "passionate, strong, and independent" character (Abartis, 1979:257). The difference of opinion between
these two camps is striking. Instead of talking about inaction and masochism, the second school of thought describes the modern gothic heroine as the central character
who is largely responsible for the movement of the story (Minudri, 1973:658). These do not seem to be the same women who were earlier described as passive and defenseless. Instead, these gothic heroines "...are strong. They are intelligent, they are educated, curious, and, for the roost part, they are unable to accept the strictures of a society which push them towards patterns of behavior...they find untenable" (Minudri, 1973:658).
They are also likely to be nontraditional in a number of ways. Ruggiero and Weston report that modern gothic heroines are more likely to be portrayed as having "at least mixed and often nontraditional attitudes towards the roles of women in society" and to be "characterized in a positive, even heroic fashion" (Ruggiero and Weston, 1977:294).
Additionally, they are often portrayed as working at jobs outside the home and "as having a number of aspirations and goals (generally involving a combination of marriage and a career along with some striving for adventure and self-identity)" (Ruggiero and Weston, 1977:294). 79
The difference of opinion concerning the portrayal of the modern gothic heroine is so large that reconciliation between the two schools of thought appears to be impossible.
Even an explanation of the difference is difficult. It is possible that the researchers have studied different novels and have thus cone to different conclusions. Perhaps this explains part of the difference in opinion, although both Ruggiero and Weston, and Russ looked at some of the same authors for their studies. Another explanation, which has
been offered by Janice Radway, is that the two schools of thought focus on different parts of these novels. Radway suggests that those researchers who argue for the gothic romance's "essentially conservative nature" tend to focus on the resolution of the narrative itself "which invariably established its heroine's happiness by throwing her into the arms of a traditionally protective male" (Radway, 1981:1U2). In contrast, those researchers who see the heroine as an active and decisive character in full control of her own life concentrate on the heroine's initially stormy relationship with the hero, and his eventual change of heart in the story. As Radway explains, researchers who see signs of "covert feminine protest at the subjugation of women" in modern gothic novels focus on the lengthy interlude during which the heroine repetitively, consistently, and successfully refuses to be ruled by an aggressive, domineering man. Equally significant, the ending of the tale demonstrates that despite the heroine's final acceptance of his protection, this hero is made over by her influence into an individual who is 80
not only more affable, but more openly nurturant as well (Radway, 1981:142, 155).
Radway claims that the hostile relationship between the
hero and the heroine provokes attitudes and feelings in the readers which cause them to question some of the fundamental cultural beliefs about sex roles in society. Yet, although. Radway states that approximately two-thirds of the modern gothic novel is devoted to "the explicit reversal of common cultural assumptions about gender behavior" (by which she means the long period of each book when the hero and heroine engage in verbal jousting and a generally antagonistic relationship), she does not find these novels to present an overall feminist thrust (Radway, 1981:160). As she concludes.
While gothic novels might be termed "feminist" novels because they portray heroines who exhibit characteristics usually precluded by the "feminine" sex-role stereotype and because they provide the reader with at least a temporary opportunity to express both anger and unfulfilled desire, they are also reactionary in their assertion that the feminist goals of individual fulfillment and independence can be achieved through the maintenance of traditional male-female relations. We simply cannot overlook the fact that the feminist protest is not sustained. The novel may temporarily express a subconscious desire for a reordering of relations between men and women, but that subversive desire is always turned aside in the end in a way that shows it to have been unnecessary at the outset (Radway, 1981:160) .
In short, any questioning of cultural beliefs provoked by the hostility between the hero and heroine is forgotten or rendered "unnecessary" by the resolution of the plot. 81
While Radway's explanation of the contradictory appraisals of the modern gothic heroine allows at least a partial reconciliation between the two schools of thought,
some difference of opinion must obviously remain. But whether one sees the heroine as passive and dependent, or active and independent, she is still the "good woman" in the
story, in direct juxtaposition to her rival, the "bad woman." In the modern gothic novel, women come in two varieties, good and bad, and only the good will win in the end.
Science Fiction Of all the forms of formula fiction, science fiction is easily the youngest. Hugo Gernsback is generally credited
with being the father of science fiction (Cansler, 1972). Gernsback, the founder of the first radio magazine. Modern Electrics (1908) , introduced his first stories about science
in a magazine he edited called Science and Invention. In 1926, he began a new magazine which he named ftmazlng Stories. Science fiction was born in this magazine
(although Gernsback didn't actually coin the term "science fiction"--originally "scientifiction"--until three years later, in 1929) (Tymn, 1978:251).
Russel Nye explains that the relative recency of this branch of popular literature is due to the fact that fiction about science's relation to society and the future could only be written after the importance of science was a matter 82 of general agreement. As Nye observes, "Fiction of fantasy—that is, of the unexplained impossibility—is of course, as old as fairy tale and myth. Fiction of science—of the explicable possibility—depended on the post-Newtonian world's faith in science's ability to explain and shape experience" (Nye, 1970:270).
While most science fiction enthusiasts regard Gernsback as the founder of the field, influences from other, earlier sources are also recognized. For example, Jules Verne's
1873 novel. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and the Utopian literature of the late 1800s are both seen as ancestors to the genre which developed in the mid-1920s (Berger, 1972; Taylor, 1972). The early science fiction stories focused on the scientific gadget or gimmick. "Machines and methodology," to use Russel Nye's phrase, dominated these early stories. But, by the late 1930s, the nature of science fiction began to change due to the influence of John W. Campbell, the editor of Astounding Science Faction magazine. Campbell encouraged science fiction writers to explore the dramatic possibilities of the genre. As Nye explains, Campbell believed that "science fiction should be not only concerned with scientific and technological change, but with its social and cultural implications as well" (Nye, 1970:275)•
Campbell encouraged a shift in interest from the storyline to the characters, and from science, itself, to the consequences of scientific advancement. 83
Campbell’s emphasis on the importance of the characters in science fiction, along with the inevitable futuristic thrust of this genre, might lead one to surmise that this genre would be the least likely to present the traditional stereotypical portraits of male and female characters. Only a small amount of research has been conducted on this topic, but the work that has been done indicates that science fiction has not met the challenge of the future with regard to the sexes.® As Ken Clancy-Hepburn explains, science fiction is a school of writing nominally given to the postulation of action within an alternate reality, but is one actually grounded in the consistent and dominant presence of value stereotypes, of sexual stereotypes and of well-dogmatized methods of problem-solving (Clancy-Hepburn, 1973:29).
Despite the creative latitude obviously available to writers of science fiction, most authors in this genre have not attempted to create new roles or characters for men and women. Although most science fiction is set in the future, the characterizations of males and females within this genre belong to the present, at best, and the past, at worst. As Joanna Russ explains.
Most science fiction is set far in the future, some of it very far in the future, hundreds of thousands of years sometimes. One would think that by then human society, family life, personal relations, child-bearing, in fact anything one can name, would have altered beyond recognition. This is not the case. The more intelligent, literate fiction carries today’s values and standards into its future Galactic Empires. What may politely be called the less sophisticated fiction returns to the past—not even a real past, in most cases, but 84
an idealized and exaggerated past (Russ, 1972:80)*
Russ's assertion that science fiction often "returns to the past" has been repeated by other researchers in this area (Clancy-Hepburn, 1973; Hume, 1982; Kelly, 1968) . While the gadgets and gimmickry of science allows the plots of science fiction to vary widely, a very simple formula is the basis of almost all of the stories in this field. As
Clancy-Hepburn explains, "Mainstream Science Fiction has one model. There is an apparently unsoluble problem/threat that endangers: America, the world, the galactic empire, all of
time and space" (Clancy-Hepburn, 1973:30) . The bulk of each story deals with the ways in which the hero attempts to solve this problem or threat. The hero may have a "girl
Friday," but she is a strictly secondary character whose sole raison d'etre is to assist the hero as he solves the problem and saves the world, the universe, or whatever
(Clancy-Hepburn, 1973) . The advancements of science, as far as literature is concerned, have done little to change the position of women in society. As Betty Bradlyn observes, "You would think that science fiction would provide a vehicle to portray women of the future in a progressive way—allowing them equality in the formation and exploration of new worlds and social systems. But in science fiction women are treated as property!!" (Bradlyn, 1973:28). 85
The hero and his problem are the only important items in the science fiction story. Women characters may exist, but they exist almost solely to serve. Science fiction is generally assumed to appeal to a mostly male readership (Russ, 1972) . A 1958 survey of the readers of the leading science fiction magazine found that 85 to 95 percent of the readers were male (Berger, 1972). It is a genre largely written by men, for men, and, like the western story, its appeal, although clothed in futuristic rather than Western apparel, lies in a return to simpler values, similar to the values of the frontier. As R. Gordon Kelly explains. Its appeal—but its limited appeal—in an age disillusioned with any simple faith in inevitable progress, is clear, for the outmoded naturalism found at the core of much science fiction is naive and unambiguous. Far from imaginatively coming to grips with accelerating change, science fiction looks backward to a future that will never be (Kelly, 1968:211).
Carol Whitehurst did an excellent study of men and women characters in science fiction stories in 1980. Whitehurst conducted a content analysis on all 26 of the science fiction novels which had won the Hugo award (a science fiction literary award) since 1953. Her hypothesis was that men and women are portrayed in stereotyped ways, with women subordinate and men dominant. The variables she examined included visibility (defined in terms of the character's occupation, education, and age), and exercise of power (defined in terms of political, military, or religious 86
leadership). Her findings showed that, throughout the period under study (1953-1979), only a quarter of all of the characters in the sample were women. In addition, the men
characters predominated in higher status occupations, were much more often portrayed as leaders, tended to have more education, and tended to be older than the women characters.
Whitehurst examined her sample by time period as well, dividing the novels into three time spans, 1953-61, 1962-69, and 1970-79. She did find some movement towards
equalization as time progressed, but her final conclusion
was that, although there is a ’’recent tendency toward improved status of women in science fiction, tney remain
much less visible and of lower status than men" (Whitehurst, 1980:330). In short, the small amount of research which has been done on science fiction indicates that this genre generally displays a strongly traditional and stereotypical conception of male and female roles. Considering that this form of
fiction is written mostly for men, and that its chief appeal is in a return to the values of the past, the greatly reduced role of women in this genre should probably not be extraordinarily surprising. As Ken Clancy-Hepburn concludes:
What Science Fiction (and other forms like it) sells is peach pie and fatherhood. It reasserts our ability to solve problems. In the course of any Sci Fi tale a nasty mess is cleaned up, and that's nice. But more wonderfully, in the course of any tale we return again to those days of yesteryear when reality saw to it that goodness 87 triumphed over evil, that work put the sybarite to shame and that blithe certitude cast all doubts into a sterner underworld. Within this order the subtler mutations of personhood can be no more than tertiary considerations (Clancy-Hepburn, 1973:30). ENDNOTES
*The broad horizons of popular culture can perhaps best be seen in the scope of articles included in the premier journal of this field, the Journal of Popular Culture. For example, a recent volume of this journal (15) included articles on amusement parks, newspapers, gigolos, rubber stamps, Fred Allen, Hark Twain, Walt Disney, Edward R. Hurrow, Buddy Holly, Tarzan, television, roller coasters, French Romanticism, baseball. Hustler magazine, and Republican campaign songs.
2For an extensive discussion on these "great debates," see Herbert J. Gans’s Popular Culture and High Culture (197tJ) . In this work. Cans reviews the various critiques of popular culture, compares mass culture to high culture, and establishes and defines a hierarchy of five cultural layers (i.e., taste cultures) including high culture, upper-middle culture, lower-middle culture, low culture, and quasi-folk low culture. For a less extensive but more concise examination of the "great debates," see Tom Kando's review article on the arguments for and against popular culture (Kando, 1975b) . For a brief look at the historical precedents for treating popular culture as "lower" culture, see John Cawelti's article, "Notes Toward an Aesthetic of Popular Culture” (Cawelti, 1971). Lastly, for a newer version of the "great debates," see Arnold Hauser's The Sociology of Art (1982), in which he notes, for instance, that"”"High and significant works of art which correspond to the demands of the culture elite reveal a far richer variety of types than artistic products designed for the lower strata” and that "Folk art is comparatively simple, clumsy, and antiquated; popular art, on the other hand is sophisticated in its own way, technically highly developed, even though vulgar, and changes, though seldom for the better, from one day to the next" (Hauser, 1982:558, 563). 3The two other forms of formula fiction mentioned earlier—horror stories and best-selling social melodramas—will not be examined here. The horror story is an older form of formula fiction that was largely dormant until a very recent rejuvenation, led by some extremely popular authors such as Stephen King (The Shining. Firestarter. The Dead Zong, Cujo, to name only a~few), Paula Trachtman (Disturb Not the Dream), and Peter Straub (Ghost Story).
88 89
Social melodramas are not recognized as formula fiction by all observers. John Cawelti. probably the foremost expert in this area. does refer to social melodramas as formula fiction, but he distinguishes the type of formula social melodramas employ from the type of formulas employed by mysteries or westerns. Cawelti explains that "Instead of a particular formula, social melodrama is a type defined by the combination of melodramatic structure and character with something that passes for a 'realistic* social or historical setting" (Cawelti, 1976:261). There is no fixed pattern of either character or action in this type of work. Cawelti assigns social melodramas a quasi-formulaic status because these novels generally assume a certain structure and uphold a certain moral order, but this is a very loose definition of a formula, which is not widely upheld. Consequently, this type of story will not be included in this review. ♦Some of the big publishers of Gothic romances include Fawcett, Avon, Ballantine, Dell, Bantam, Pockett Books, and Warner (Snitow, 1979)• Undoubtedly the publisher most frequently identified with this form of fiction is Canadian-based Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd. In 1958, Harlequin published its first Harlequin Romance. Just less than twenty years later, in 1977, Harlequin achieved the status of being the most profitable paperback publisher in the industry with profits of $11 million on sales of $75 million, and an after tax profit margin of 15%, or almost three times the industry average (Berman, 1978). In this same year. Harlequin, only one of hundreds of publishers, boasted a capture of 10% of the total U.S. paperback market (Berman, 1978). 5The importance of following the gothic formula is probably nowhere more apparent than in the Harlequin book list. Harlequin romances all follow a very strict pattern, so strict in fact, that sometimes the stories seem almost indistinguishable. Luckily for the reader, the books are numbered, "so that readers can keep track of which books they have read even if they forget the name of the authors" (Pace, 1973:31). To achieve this desired, and required, uniformity, the Harlequin company provides a series of guidelines to prospective authors which note, in part, that: Harlequins are well-plotted, strong romances with a happy ending. They are told from the heroine's point of view and in the third person. There may be elements of mystery or adventure, but these must be subordinate to romance. The books are contemporary and settings can be anywhere in the world as long as they are authentic (Modleski, 1980:437). 90
Harlequin releases 13 new titles each month (Berman, 1978} . Each book is approximately 188 pages long, which translates to 55,000 to 58,000 words per book (Snitow, 1979). They are standardized in size to fit on Harlequin display racks in bookstores, supermarkets, drugstores, and discount chains. Approximately 140 women write for the company, although almost all male gothic authors employ female pseudonyms so it is impossible to determine how many gothic novels, inside and outside of Harlequin, are actually written by men (Havasky, 1974). The Harlequin company backs their books with heavy television advertising, but these ads do not push single titles, but rather advance the series as a whole (or, in other words, the Harlequin formula), thereby spreading the costs over all of the titles (Berman, 1978). *A sarcastic explanation for this lack of female friendship has been offered by Kathryn Weibel who notes that one possible reason for the exclusion of female friends for the heroine is that Mthe friend would almost necessarily be more interesting than the heroine and so the reader wouldn't know who to sympathize with" (Weibel, 1977:37).
7Sex and sexuality are interesting topics with regard to gothic romances. The heroine's innocence is continuously contrasted with the other woman's worldliness in matters of the flesh. Yet at the same time, the heroine's hostile relationship with the hero has obvious sexual undercurrents, implying that when the hostilities cease, the heroine's innocence may soon come to an end. Consequently, some observers feel that the hostility between the two main characters derives from a not-so-healthy "dread of sexuality" which seems to "run right through gothic fiction, and is basic to so many of its conventions of anxiety and terror" (Wolf, 1973:2). Another interesting perspective on this topic has been offered by Nancy Regan who notes that heroines in modern gothic novels often come to feel a general uneasiness about the house in which they are staying, the hero's house. Regan claims that the house assumes a "sexual symbolism" because it belongs to the hero, and the general uneasiness which the heroine experiences is actually an uneasiness with her own "bodily, sexual self" (Regan, 1978:773). eThere are, however, some notable exceptions to the backwards thrust in sexrole stereotyping in science fiction novels. The 1970 Hugo Award-winning science fiction story. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula LeGuin, the 1978 science fiction story. Gateway. by Frederick Pohl, and the 1979 science fiction story, Preamsnake by Vonda McIntyre are all examples of some of the more progressive science fiction (Whitehurst, 1980). 91
Some other examples, which are noted in The Science Fiction Encyclopedia. edited by Peter Nicholls, include Walk the End of the World, by Suzy McKee Charnas (1974), Woman QD the ^dge of Time, by Marge Piercy (1976), The Female Man, by Joanna Russ (1975), and two anthologies edited by Pamela Sargent: Women of Wonder (1975), and More Women o£ Wpnder (1976). Yet, despite these examples, the Encyclopedia notes that, by and large, science fiction has not shown much progress in the treatment of women characters, most of whom are relegated to "stereotyped and patronizing roles," and the Encyclopedia repeats an observation made by other researchers in this genre: Although sf would seem an ideal format in which to examine this question (i.e., the role of women in society) since it can readily admit the construction of alternative societies in which the role of women is quite different, the feminist movement has not yet resulted in very much feminist sf (Nicholls, 1979:661). Chapter IV WOMEN IN MYSTERY NOVELS
Women in mystery novels can be divided into two categories: detectives and nondetectives. Researchers interested in the role of women in this type of fiction generally choose to study only one of the two categories of women, and the former category has been decidedly more popular than the latter. While several articles and books are available on the topic of fictional women detectives, very little information exists about all of the other women in detective stories. These other women—the nondetectives—make up the large bulk of female characterizations in mystery fiction. since the female detective is strictly an anomaly, a woman not only in a traditionally male occupation, but in a particularly "unsuitable'* profession for a lady, to paraphrase the title of one of P.D. James's Cordelia Gray mysteries. Of course this is exactly what makes the female detective such an interesting topic for study.
Yet the small amount of research available on nondetective, female characters in mystery fiction shows some interesting findings as well. The most important point to bear in mind when looking at female characters in mystery
92 93 novels is that, for the most part, female characters play a minor or secondary role in most mystery fiction (except, of course, for those novels in which the female is revealed to be the villain, an interesting subset of the mystery universe which will be discussed shortly). As John Cawelti observes, in most mystery and adventure stories, ’’The relation between hero and villain is really more important than the hero's involvement with a woman” (Cawelti, 1976:41).
As secondary characters, women need not undergo sustained character development. Instead, the easiest way to include women characters without diverting too much attention from the mystery of the plot is by dividing all of the women characters into two camps: good women and bad women, with the usual sexual connotations applying. Good women don't sleep with the hero; bad women do. But while bad women supply the hero with a needed sexual outlet, they cannot be trusted since their badness may extend beyond their unchaste ways. As Jerry Palmer explains in his examination of women characters in James Bond (Ian Fleming) and Mine Hammer (Mickey Spillane) novels:
The cut-off point, in both Bond and Spillane, between sexual and non-sexual relationships, occurs at the point of companionship. A girl who can be a companion cannot be a lover....The sexuality of the thriller is based, intrinsically, upon the brief encounter. The companion is too much of a "good girl”; she is—at root—simply too boring. What the hero wants is a girl who offers excitement, sexual excitement, a girl who has something of the whore about her; a "bad girl", in short. With the good girl there is no mystery. 94
life is infinitely repetitious; with the bad girl, however well you Know her, you will never know her completely—life is infinitely mysterious. She gives the impression of always having something in reserve (Palmer, 1979:34).
While this "something in reserve" means that the bad girl can’t be trusted, the good girl is a constant menace due to her own incompetency. Palmer divides all mystery characters into three categories: the improvisor or professional (usually the detective hero); the programmer or bureaucrat (usually the villain); and the total incompetent or amateur (usually a woman). As Palmer explains, this third category is easily the most marginal to the story. The presence of the Amateur in the thriller is easy to overlook. Thrillers are about action, and the Amateur’s participation in the action is—by definition almost—passive. Most frequently the Amateur is a girl whom the hero is obliged to rescue. She's unable to save herself—she lacks the necessary expertise to improvise successfully. And since she is only there by accident, she has no master plan which will bring other people in to deal with contingencies. In short, she doesn't belong (Palmer, 1979:10).
In some cases, though, the woman clearly does belong because she assumes the antagonist role. When the woman is the villain her presence is no longer marginal to the story, but neither is her character much more developed than the character of the woman amateur. Just as the amateur woman is incompetent but good, and thus worthy of saving, the villainous woman is competent but bad, and thus destined for a miserable end. In fact, the division of women characters 95 into good and bad categories is even more pronounced in the mystery novels that feature a female antagonist.
Mickey Spillane novels often contain a female murderer.1 They also contain a virginal "girl Friday" for the hero (and the reader) to contrast with the wicked woman villain. More often than not, the hero sleeps with the murderess before he realizes her true nature. Eventually he kills her. As one observer notes, the standard Mickey Spillane plot is fairly simple: "boy meets girl, boy is seduced by girl, boy kills girl" (Orel, 1968:402). Two types of women exist in Spillane's world: the good woman, who is often the detective's "lovely" assistant who represents "an older image of middle-class femininity—chaste, domestic, and deferent to masculine authority," and the bad woman, who tends to be "aggressively sexual and living outside of the social norms" (Cawelti, 1976:160; Weibel, 1977:44).2 A similar dichotomy of women characters is found in the works of the French mystery-writer, George Simenon.
Simenon, the creator of the great French detective, Maigret, generally portrays his women characters in two ways: "la maman or la putain," the mother or the whore (Eisinger,
1978:52). Erica Eisinger notes that women characters are generally of very limited importance in French detective fiction. Detective fiction in France is considered male literature and women detectives are absent from this type of writing. Simenon often includes women characters in his 96 novels, but their roles are standardized to a large extent.
As Eisinger observes: Sirnenon's men are engaged in a fearsome struggle to assert themselves; the adversary is nearly always a woman. The typical Simenon novel recounts a man's attempt to escape the bad mother, the whore, who invades the masculine sanctuary and incites him invariably to crime, and to find the good mother, the perfect wife, who alone renders heroic action possible (Eisinger, 1978:52).
Female detectives are more interesting characters than female nondetectives, particularly because the female detective is able to break free, to a large extent, from the good woman/bad woman dichotomy that seems to plague so much of popular literature. This is not to say that female detectives are above any sort of categorization. In fact, one study of this fictional character which examined 52 female detectives dating from the 1920s to the 1970s discovered that the vast majority of these women characters could be classified into one of four categories: the single (in terms of marital status) young nonworker, the single older (30 to 60 years old) career woman, the single old lady (over 60), and the single young career woman (Fritz and Hevener, 1979) . Some of these categories were more popular in earlier periods of time: the researchers report that the first category, the single young nonworker, has all but disappeared in detective fiction. While in the 1920s and
30s, 44X of the female detectives (both young and old) were unemployed, by the 1960s and 70s this figure had shrunk to 9.5%. 97
Fritz and Hevener report another change pertaining to the physical appearance of the female detectives. An ’•inordinately large proportion” of the female detectives of the pre-1960 years were physically unattractive (Fritz and Hevener, 1979:116). The researchers explain that this physical typecasting was a convention born of necessity in a stringently sexrole stereotyped society. Attractive women could not possess the characteristics necessary for successful detective work (i.e., intelligence, independence, assertiveness, courage, etc.) because this would “violate accepted images of women" (Fritz and Hevener, 1979:115). The solution was to use women who didn’t fit the female stereotype in terras of either physical appearance or personality. Consequently, prior to the 1960s and 70s when the sexrole stereotypes initially began to crumble, the typical female detective was "the poor thing no man wanted" (Fritz and Hevener, 1979:116). And, if the female detective was not portrayed as physically unattractive, then she was apt to be an older woman "whose sex was denied by her age" (Fritz and Hevener, 1979:118). In the sixties and seventies a new type of female detective began to emerge: category 4, the single young career woman. This was a female detective who was both physically attractive and intelligent. These detectives were single by choice. The researchers contend that the emergence of this fourth type of female detective can be 98 attributed to social "developments in the role and status of women over this period" (Fritz and Hevener, 1979:123). The researchers conclude that the patterns of change in the portrayals of the female detective over this period of time seem to reflect social changes in the image, status, and role of women in American society.
Carolyn G. Heilbrun, a professor of English and literature at Columbia University, and also a successful mystery author under the pseudonym of Amanda Cross, undertook another study on women in detective fiction. Heilbrun contends that many of the female detectives and characters in the early period of detective fiction (late
1800s through early 1940s) were strong, independent, and liberated women (Heilbrun, 1980). In the period following World War II, the portrayal of women detectives changed abruptly, or as Heilbrun reports, "Women in their detective stories, like women elsewhere, settled down in the 50s to simply surviving that unappealing decade" (Heilbrun, 1980 :20) .
Heilbrun asserts that the character of the strong, smart female detective has reappeared in the 1970s, although
Heilbrun does not provide numerical evidence to substantiate this belief. Michele Slung, in her 1975 book. Crime on her Mind. presents a chronological list of more than one hundred female detectives from the late 19th century to the 1970s. But one critical study notes, "Although the one hundred plus 99 list by Ms. Slung may seem encouraging, thirty-five appear before 1920, many appear only in short stories, and most are obscure. Female detectives, in comparison to male detectives, have been few, famous ones, yet fewer..." (Fritz and Hevener, 1979:107).
One of the most interesting ways of studying the female detective is to examine this literary phenomenon from a historical perspective. The first woman detective appeared in England in 1061 in a novel titled The Revelations of a
Lady Detective. 3 The lady detective in this story, Mrs. Paschal, was created by an anonymous author who used the coy pseudonym of "Anonyma." Some historians believe that
"Anonyma" was actually a writing syndicate of several people, while others believe that the author was most likely U. S. Hayward (Slung, 1975:xvi; Craig and Cadogan,
1982:15). Mrs. Paschal was soon followed by a second female detective, this one nameless, in the 1864 novel, XtlS Female Detective, by Andrew Forrester, Jr. Both of these two early female detectives opted for sleuthing work to escape a form of genteel, but nevertheless dreadful, poverty (Craig and Cadogan, 1982:15).
The first American woman detective appeared in 1883 in Clarice Dyke, the Female Detective by Harry Rockwood. Mrs.
Dyke did her detecting as an assistant to her husband, much like the unofficial assistantship of Miss Amelia Butterworth, who came to the aid of New York police 100
detective Ebenezar Gryce in the 1897 novel That Affair Next Door, Amelia Butterworth was created by Anna Katharine
Green, who with the 1878 publication of The Leavenworth Case
became the first woman to write detective fiction. These early women detectives were largely of an eccentric nature. Their detecting relied considerably less on ability
than on chance, although they themselves were mostly unaware of the unusual amount of beneficial luck involved in their successful resolution of cases. As Patricia Craig and Mary
Cadogan explain: The early female criminal investigators prided themselves on their ability to tackle situations with panache; but actually they trailed a genteel aura of discreet scent, elegant gowns and earnest tea-cup tete-a-tetes. Their exploits are rarely spiced with authentic danger, and the stories rely heavily on coincidence (Craig and Cadogan, 1982:16).
In the years following the introduction of Mrs. Paschal and up until the period of the first world war, a series of fairly similar female detectives were introduced. Many of
these detectives entered the sleuthing business solely to
clear the name of a father, brother, husband, or sweetheart who had been unjustly accused of some sort of heinous crime.
Wilkie Collin’s ’’Valerie Woodville’’ (1875), George R. Sims's "Dorcas Dene" (1897), Clarence Rook's "Nora Van Snoop” (1898), Grant Allen's "Hilda Wade" (1899), and Baroness
Orczy's "Lady Molly" (1910) are all examples of female detectives who began their detective work for the love of a 101 man whose reputation was at stake. Though these detectives didn’t always retire when their male relatives were eventually redeemed, this initial reason for entrance into a
"male field" probably gave the female detectives a little more credibility with their readers. As Craig and Cadogan note.
In the eyes of their readers this steadfast support for wronged male relatives made their incursions into non-domestic and possibly dubious male preserves respectable—especially if the women in question acted as unpaid enthusiasts rather than career detectives (fees and femininity did not go together in polite society) (Craig and Cadogan, 1982:21).
And, of course, some of these female detectives did retire after absolving whoever it was they had set out to clear. Many of these retiring detectives ended their careers with the sound of wedding bells. McDonnell Bodkin's "Doral Myrl" (1900), Fergus Hume's "Hagar Stanley" (1898), and Grant Allen's "Lois Caley" (1898) are three of the female detectives whose careers ended "not at the
Reichenbach Falls, but at the matrimonial altar" (Slung, 1975:xx) .* World War I brought social change that gradually found its way onto the pages of the mystery novel. As men marched off to war, and women assumed previously masculine jobs, some new kinds of female detectives emerged. Full-time professional women detectives, sometimes engaging in a little patriotic war spying, were introduced. "Madelyn 102
Mack./' Hugh C. Weir's female version of Sherlock Holmes, complete with a magnifying glass and Holmes's predilection for the artificial stimulation of narcotics, was introduced in 1914, Two years later, Arthur B. Reeves presented "Constance Dunlap," an ex-criminal, now amateur detective, only to be followed in the proceeding year by Jeanette Lee's
"Millicent Newberry," who successfully opens her own detective agency after she is refused a completely free hand in the detective agency at which she had previously worked.
Women spies or intelligence agents also appeared in this wartime era. For example, Harry Blyth's "Vali Mata-Vali" (1920s), Valentine Williams's "Olive Dunbar" (1928), and E,
Phillips Oppenheim's "Edith Brown" (1927) all emerged to do their patriotic bit for a better society. After the war the female detective began to change again.
Women appeared as auxiliary detectives aiding their husbands or employers. Husband and wife teams were especially popular, such as Agatha Christie's "Tuppence and Tommy
Beresford" (1920s), Richard and Frances Lockridge's "Jeremy and Pamela North" (1937), Margaret Manner's "Desdemona (Squeakie) and David Meadows" (1943), and Dashiell Hammett's
"Nick and Nora Charles" (1932). Some of these husband and wife teams started out unmarried with the wife-to-be a prime suspect in some nefarious crime being investigated by the husband-to-be. Ngaio Marsh's "Roderick and Troy Allen" (1938), Nicholas Blake's "Nigel and Georgia Strangeways" 103
(1936), and Dorothy Sayers’s "Peter and Harriet Wirasey" (1937) all began their literary careers as single people, with the male half of each couple eventually clearing the name of the female half. Old maid detectives also proliferated in the 1930s. Miss Jane Marple, Miss Maud Silver, Ethel Thomas, Matilda Perks, and Miss Rachel Murdock all emerged during this period (Slung, 1975:xxii). Nosy and snooping, these older ladies clearly were reminiscent of some of the earliest female detectives, such as Mrs. Paschal and Miss Amelia Butterworth. In short, the trend of the postwar period seemed in many ways regressive for women detectives.
Whereas during the war women owned their own detective agencies and worked as daring spies, after the war the woman detective quietly resumed her place beside her husband, and the older woman amateur detective became more prominent. Craig and Cadogan explain these changes in terms of social forces occurring in the larger society. As they report, in the 1930s
active feminism was considered old hat and soon became a source of irritation to those preoccupied with more pressing issues like the war in Spain and threatening developments in Germany. It had acquired a ridiculous aspect, and so a fashionable author was forced to adopt a bantering tone on the subject, displaying at the same time an awareness of apparently fundamental traits and incapacities in each sex (Craig and Cadogan, 1982:207).*
But Craig and Cadogan are quick to point out that postwar conservatism could not completely reverse the wartime 104
progress of the female detective. Some of the best examples of this progress appeared in the adolescent mystery fiction of the early 1930s. Sylvia Silence, VicKy Dare, and
Judy Dolton were some of the more popular teenage detectives who appeared during this period, but the most popular, then
and now, was the 16 year old teenage sleuth from River Heights, Nancy Drew.* The first three Nancy Drew stories were drafted by Edward Stratemeyer shortly before his death in 1930. Stratemeyer,
a prolific publisher of adolescent fiction, used the pseudonym of Carolyn Keene which was retained by his daughter, Harriet Adams, when she continued the Nancy Drew
series after his death.7 Nancy Drew*s long-lived popularity is usually attributed to the characters perfectness. As Lee Zacharias explains,
tJancy succeeds not merely because the reader can identify with her but because the reader wants to identify with her; she is an ever-contemporary projection and fulfillment of the reader. She is everything the reader is not and wishes to be (Zacharias, 1976:1028).
As a detective, Nancy is consistently successful, although an adult reading the series might not be as impressed as an adolescent by Nancy's mystery-solving skills.® But detective ability is only one small part of this multi-talented teenager. As Arthur Prager observes:
She rides and swims in Olympic style, not only besting the Amateur Champion of fashionable Sylvan Lake, but on one occasion leaping into a bayou with all her clothes on and doing a rapid 500 yards to the shore. She can fix a balky outboard 105
motor with a bobby pin. With no effort, she climbs a rose trellis to the second floor. Pursuing an escaped crook, she puts the police on his trail by drawing a perfect likeness of him for them. When the River Heights Women's Club charity show faces disaster because of the defection of its leading lady, Nancy steps in at a moments notice and wins general kudos with a creditable ballet, although she is recuperating from a sprained ankle. At 100 yards, she plugs a lynx three times with a Colt .44 revolver. Her delphiniums win first prize at the flower show. She floors "Zany" Shaw, a full-grown lawbreaker with a right to the jaw. She is always a barrel of fun at a party and she "received a lot of applause for her impersonation of Helena Hawley, a motion picture star who played parts in old-time Westerns” (Prager, 1969:19).
Nancy is obviously a superwoman of sorts. She is a unique female character in any time period. Few adult characters, male or female, can match her in over-all ability, although towards the end of the 1930s some adult women detectives were introduced who possessed a
Nancy-Drew-like efficiency. H. H. Holmes's "Sister Mary Ursula" and Paul Galileo's "Sally (Sherlock) Holmes Lane" had the same crisp style of the girl sleuth.
The late 30s and early 40s also saw a re-emergence of women spy/detectives as World War II loomed ahead. This is a trend that continued for several decades, although, of course, at no time did women spies constitute more than only a small fraction of the total pool of literary spy characters. And while some women spies were always the main character in their books, for example Peter O'Donnell's "Modesty Blaise," most women spies were only awarded 106 secondary status behind a super-male spy, such as James Bond
The post World War II period provided few female detectives, and this remained true up until the very recent past when a new type of woman detective emerged (Slung, 1975) . The earliest indication of this new type of female detective appeared in 1964 with the introduction of "Kate Fansler" by Amanda Cross. Fansler is an intelligent, attractive professor of literature, who capably solves the mysteries that occur in the normal course of her life and work. She is not eccentric. She is not a busybody. She doesn't resort to snooping, and she couldn't be described as
"nosy." She is a much more ordinary character than the women detectives who preceded her (Filstrup, 1980). The 1970s produced other "ordinary" women detectives;
P.D. James's "Cordelia Gray" (1972), Anne Morice's "Tessa Crichton" (1970), and Antonia Fraser's "Jemima Shore" (1977) are among the most popular of these new mystery heroines.
Like Kate Fansler, the most extraordinary characteristic of these women detectives is their ordinariness. As Craig and Cadogan conclude.
The female detective is no longer a product of wild originality or excessive characterization: these attributes have served their purpose. Realism, irony and moderation are the qualities demanded at the present time; but the real person is no less effective as a sleuth, as writers like Amanda Cross have shown. From the moment, however, when Mrs. Paschal outraged convention by her choice of career, the theme and character have interacted productively. Through all the changes in social attitudes, and through all her varied 107
incarnations, the woman detective stands out as the most economical, the most striking and the most agreeable embodiment of two qualities often disallowed for women in the past: the power of action and practical intelligence (Craig and Cadogan, 1902:2«6).
In summary, the treatment of women characters in mystery fiction can be divided into two separate groups: women detectives and women nondetectives. The former are far fewer than the latter. At no time have women detectives made up more than a small fraction of the total population of mystery detectives, but despite their scarcity in number, women detectives are important characters in popular literature because they are one set of female characters who seem to have been able to escape the automatic dichotomization of women into good and bad roles. The same cannot be said of female nondetectives.
Summary: Women in Formula Fiction
An interesting pattern concerning the role of women in formula fiction has emerged. Women, by and large, play a secondary role in western novels, science fiction, and murder mysteries. With the exception of those relatively rare stories which feature a female protagonist or antagonist, most of the writing in these three forms of formula fiction focus on male characters battling other male characters. A clever male detective hunts down an evil male murderer. A brillant male scientist outwits a malevolent male madman. A lone courageous cowboy defeats a deranged 108 male desparado. Women characters exist but, for the most part, their role in the main plot is strictly secondary. Women characters only come into importance in the sideplots in these novels. Before and after the hero confronts his antagonist, women characters perform sundry services for the men characters. The nature of these services often determines the ultimate end for the female character. Women who service the hero sexually most often come to a rather dismal end. On the other hand, women who avoid sexual entanglements, and restrict their services to domestic duties tend to fare much better in the long run. This same rule of thumb applies to gothic romances, although in these novels the progress of the male/female relationship is actually the main plot rather than a sideplot. Although a sideplot may determine the pace of the novel, inasmuch as the most important sideplot usually deals with the root cause of the psychological barriers initially present between the hero and the heroine, the main plot, and the bulk of each novel, deals with the ever-increasing interaction between the hero and the heroine. As Ann Barr Snitow explains, modern gothic romances
alternate between scenes of the hero and heroine together in which she does a lot of social lying to save face, pretending to be unaffected by the hero's presence while her body melts or shivers, and scenes in which the heroine is essentially alone, living in a cloud of absorption, preparing mentally and physically for the next contact (Snitow, 1979: 145). 109
The heroine, then, plays a major role in the modern gothic romance. In this sense, these novels differ radically from murder mysteries, western novels, and science fiction, all of which rarely feature a major female character. Yet, in another sense, the modern gothic romance is not very different at all from these other forms of formula fiction for, like the others, modern gothics present a dichotomized view of women. Host of the women in modern gothic romances, western novels, and murder mysteries come in two varieties: good and bad. The only exception might prove to be science fiction. Relatively little research has been done on the role of women characters in this particular form of fiction. The research that has been done suggests that women are, at best, minor characters in science fiction. The dichotomy of women that has been discovered in much of popular literature has not yet been noted in science fiction, and it may be that women are such marginal characters in this genre that they don't even come in the basic two varieties, or, in other words, that female character development in science fiction is at an even more primitive level than that denoted by the dual natured view of women.
In short, research on the treatment of female characters in formula fiction has revealed that women are usually relegated to secondary roles, are often divided into good and bad types, and are frequently subjected to a high degree 110 of sexrole stereotyping. These findings are not limited to women in popular literature. Women in all forms of the mass media have been stereotyped with traditional sex roles.
Appendix A is an overview of the research that has been done on images of women in television, films. ENDNOTES
^Although Mickey Spillane novels have achieved a tremendous popularity amongst mystery-reading audiences (Spillane is third in popularity, behind Erie Stanley Gardner and Ellery Queen
3Although most mystery-historians acknowledge the year 1861 as the publication date of The Revelations of a Lady Detective. there is actually some confusion about when exactly this book was published. In any event, 1861, if not exactly accurate, is thought to be very close (Slung, 1975:xvi).
♦Reichenbach Falls was supposed to be the site of Sherlock Holmes's demise; however, readers had become so enamored with this character that they demanded his resurrection, and their wish was not denied.
5Undoubtedly, another "more pressing issue" diverting attention away from feminism in the 1930s was the Great Depression.
Ill 112 ‘Although Nancy was 16 years old at the time of her introduction, she aged two years over the course of her lifespan. Nancy Drew novels in the 1950s placed her age at 18. This was not the only change to occur in these novels. While the early stories contained references to "darKies" and "coloreds," these racist terms were excised in later editions of these early worKs (Zacharias, 1976) . 7Kancy Drew was only one of a whole series of adolescent literary figures produced by Edward Stratemeyer. Stratemeyer published his first book. The Rover Boy^ at School, in 1899 under the name of Arthur Winfield. In addition to publishing stories about the Rover Boys and Nancy Drew, Stratemeyer also created many other popular juvenile series, including the Bobbsey Twins and the Hardy Boys. According to Peter Soderbergh, Stratemeyer would plot the outlines for these stories, but the actual writing would be done by the "Stratemeyer Syndicate," a stable of hired writers (Soderbergh, 1974). "In fact, an adult might find it difficult to believe much that occurs in the Nancy Drew novels. The importance of chance, coincidence, and plain old luck could never be overestimated in these stories. They are mysteries in only the loosest sense of the word, and plot credibility is often strained beyond the breaking point. As Patricia Craig and Nary Cadogan amusingly note: Every one of the rules laid down for adult detective fiction during the period known as the Golden Age is infringed in the Nancy Drew stories. There is no mystery about the identity of the criminals; plots and sub-plots are welded together by a series of preposterous coincidences; the triumphant conclusions are not presented as a result of logic or even of plausible chance. If Nancy sits down on a park bench to think about a case she's interested in, she will soon be joined by a talkative stranger who knows something relevant to it. If a robbery takes place, the thief is liable to turn up unknowingly on Nancy's doorstep to apply for a job. The girl can spot a wrongdoer at first sight. Her unreasonable assumptions are invariably correct. She sees connections where none could possibly exist. She's helped, too, by clues in the form of strange messages which drop out of the air, as if propelled into space by a whimsical deity ('Floating towards her, seemingly out of nowhere, was a small white paper'). These may be attached to the leg of a carrier pigeon, or simply become dislodged from the bole of a tree when Nancy is walking under it (Craig and Cadogan, 1982:155). 113 Adults might also be put off by the "class snobbery" in many of these stories (Jones, 1973) . While Nancy and her friends are solidly upper-middle class, many of the villains, especially in the earlier novels, are from the lower classes. The early novels also tended to portray police officers as Irishmen of dubious intelligence, and criminals often were identified with their ethnic heritage (Jones, 1973) .
’Modesty Blaise is an interesting, and unfortunately not atypical, example of the woman spy of the late 50s and early 60s. These female characters were often portrayed in blatently sexual terms. As Craig and Cadogan note. Modesty Blaise
is supposed to be a fearfully liberated woman but, alas for feminism, whenever she is eulogized it is as a sexual object. Everything external, from her coral red toenails to her high black chignon, is regularly inventoried and applauded....She also has a nifty technique called The Nailer, which involves "taking off her sweater and bra, and going into the room stripped to the waist...The technique was guaranteed to nail a roomful of men, holding them frozen for at least two or three vital seconds" (Craig and Cadogan, 1982:220-221). Chapter V RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND RESEARCH METHODS
Statistics show that one out of every four books sold today is a mystery novel and that detective and mystery stories make up "half or more of the books stocked by the 50,000 rental libraries in the country" (Winks, 1982; Nye,
1970:268). In short, mystery fiction has one of the largest audiences of all types of fiction. Yet, despite the popularity of this form of literature, relatively little research has been done on the mystery story in the sociology of literature, and, as Chapter 2 of this study notes, most of the work that has been published has focused on the history of the mystery story, and the purpose or function served by this type of literature. The role of women characters in the mystery story has received only a small amount of attention.
Women detectives make up a very small proportion of the female mystery population, but they have been studied more frequently than women nondetectives. Many of the studies done on women nondetectives have focused on single mystery authors, such as the research noted in Chapter 4 on women in the James Bond novels, the Mickey Spillane mysteries, and
George Sirnenon's Maigret stories.
114 115
The object of this study is to examine the roles or images of women in American mystery fiction between 1955 and 1975, and to investigate how certain characteristics of mystery authors—such as an author's sex, age, or country of origin—affect the portrayal of both male and female characters in the mystery novel. The research questions to be addressed in this study are: 1. How do the images of men and women in contemporary American murder mystery fiction compare? Are male and female characters portrayed in a similar fashion, or are the two sexes portrayed differently? If differences exist, are they based on the traditional sexrole stereotypes that have been found in other research on women in the mass media?
2. How has the image of men and women characters in contemporary murder mystery fiction changed over time?
3. How do personal characteristics of the mystery author, such as the author's sex, age, country of origin, style of mystery writing, experience as a mystery writer, etc., relate to the author's portrayal of male and female characters?
4. If there are relationships between certain author characteristics and gender portrayal in the mystery story, how have these relationships changed over time?
Significance of the Research: Popular culture and media generally influence the way we see society. Investigators have determined that sexrole stereotyping in the mass media can influence our beliefs and attitudes. For example, studies have shown that children who are heavy television viewers are more likely to aspire to stereotypical careers. This same category of children are also more likely to choose traditional sexrole toys and engage in traditional 116 sexrole activities. And, in addition, they are more likely
to exhibit stereotyped perceptions when asked to attribute a series of descriptive statements to a silhouette of either a male or a female (Beuf, 1974; Frueh and McGhee, 1975; McGhee and Frueh, 1980) .
Another study prepared bogus television commercials that showed women engaged in typically male occupations. These commercials were inserted into the programming of a television cartoon and shown to a sample of grade-school children, while a control group of children viewed the cartoon with the usual stereotyped commercials. The children who saw the nontraditional commercials were more likely to describe the occupations depicted in the commercials as being suitable for women than the children who viewed the traditional commercials (Atkin and Miller, 1975). Davidson et al. (1979) performed a similar experiment in which they showed three types of cartoons to grade-school girls: highly sexrole stereotyped, neutral with regard to stereotypes, or low in sexrole stereotyping. The researchers found that the girls who viewed the low-stereotyped program received lower scores on a test of sexrole stereotyping than either the girls who saw the neutral cartoon or the girls who saw the highly stereotyped cartoon. Another study, along these same lines but using 117 adult subjects (college women) Involved two sets of commercials—one set with traditional sex roles and the other with reversed sex roles (Jennings-Ualstedt et §1»#
1980). Women who were exposed to the nontraditional version of the commercials made more independent judgements in an Asch-type conformity test following the commercials. And they demonstrated greater self-confidence in delivering a speech than the women who viewed the traditional commercials.
Similar research on the influence of literature on readers is rarely done. There is little evidence of a direct influence of literature on readers. Nonetheless, one study found that 80« of a sample believed that they had been influenced to some extent in their attitudes, values, or beliefs by reading literature (Culp, 1975). A widespread belief in social science asserts that literature, as well as other mass media, serve to set agendas in society (Rickel and Grant, 1979; Silver, 1976; Tuchman, 1978). In other words, literature—or the mass media in general—can shape "the citizens' priorities and definitions of political issues" (Tuchman, 1978:5).
Other researchers apply a functional perspective to the study of culture and mass media. Sociologists believe that the mass media play a role in the on-going socialization process of both children and adults, and that social norms 118 are reinforced through the mass media (Lazarsfeld and Merton, 1948; Wright, 1975). In one classic study, David McClelland content analyzed children's first grade reading books. McClelland's study was based on the theory that the need for achievement may be related to economic growth in a society, and that one way in which high need for achievement
is inculcated in children is through their literature. McClelland examined children's literature in different societies and in different periods, looking specifically for socialization for achievement motivation. He found that periods during which the children's literature emphasized achievement motivation were generally followed by periods of economic expansion around 30 years later, presumably when the children who had read these books were entering the most productive years of their adulthood (McClelland, 1961).
All this suggests that literature is a political force. Fetterly (1978) argues that the counter notion that literature is not political is a fiction which has been foisted on society for political reasons: Literature is political. It is painful to have to insist on this fact, but the necessity of such insistence indicates the dimensions of the problem. John Keats once objected to poetry "that has a palpable design on us." The major works of American fiction constitute a series of designs on the female reader, all the more potent in their effect because they are "impalpable." One of the main things that keeps the design of our literature unavailable to the consciousness of the woman reader, and hence impalpable, is the very posture of the apolitical, the pretense that literature speaks universal truths through forms 119
from which all the merely personal, the purely subjective, has been burned away or at least transformed through the medium of art into the representative. When only one reality is encouraged, legitimized, and transmitted and when that limited vision endlessly insists on its comprehensiveness, then we have the conditions necessary for that confusion of consciousness in which palpability flourishes (Fetterley, 1978:xi).
In the case of the murder mystery novel, the political nature of this form of literature has been openly acknowledged. Murder mystery stories have been labeled conservative, political, and ideological. Mystery novels have been described as ’'children of capitalism" and "servants of the status quo" (Kaemmel, 1983; Palmer, 1979). But these labels have been attached mainly to the "law and order" formula of the genre. The characterization of women in the mystery novel has received only a small amount of attention, and although the research points to a conservative and traditional treatment of women, the question as to whether this treatment varies over time or by the author's age or sex, or other characteristics, remains to be answered. My study attempts to supply an answer to this question, and in so doing makes a contribution to the sociology of literature by further refining an important segment in the relationship between the mystery novel and society. 120
Methods: In order to compare the characterization of men and women in mystery fiction, I have content analyzed a sample of contemporary American mystery novels. Content analysis is the most commonly used research method in the study of popular culture (Sanders, 1982). As defined by Bernard Berelson, one of the earliest proponents of this method, "Content analysis is a research technique for the objective, systematic, and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication" (Berelson, 1952:18).
While content analysis has been used extensively in research on the visual media, it is a technique which actually originated over two centuries ago, long before the invention of either television or motion pictures. According to one student of the method, "Most content analysts readily admit...(that)...there is evidence of sophisticated analyses, of religious texts and concepts, dating as far back as 1744" (Carney, 1972:27). While content analysis was done in the 18th century, the great growth of this technique began in the 20th century, first with the widespread content analyses of newspapers by schools of journalism at the beginning of the 20th century, propaganda analysis in the 1930s, and then military use of this technique during the second world war. Thomas Carney notes that "World War II did for content analysis what World
War I did for I.Q. testing. It was pressed into service 121 first for the analysis of propaganda, then for military intelligence purposes" (Carney, 1972:28). A modern definition of content analysis states that content analysis is best defined as any methodical measurement applied to a text for social science purposes. Put otherwise...the term refers to any systematic reduction of a flow of text, that is, recorded language, to a standard set of statistically manipulable symbols representing the presence, the intensity, or the frequency of some characteristics relevant to social science (Markoff et al., 1975:5).
As this definition notes, content analysis must be methodical. Content analysis as a scientific method of research depends on a systematic application. In other words, content analysis must proceed "under certain controls that render it systematic and objective in comparison with a conventional review or critique of communication content"
(Selltiz et al., 1976:392). There are two rules governing this aspect of content analysis:
1. All of the text, or a portion of it chosen by explicit rules of selection, must be processed, not only those portions that appear 'interesting* to a reader of extraordinary sensibilities; 2. There must be some symbols—numbers, words, letters, computer codes, what have you—representing categories of interest that are invariably considered, and assigned (or not assigned) after due deliberation, to all parts of the text selected for study. In other words, it would not be a content analysis if a reader were to utilize one set of categories with its appropriate symbols on one portion of text and other categories on other portions, depending on 122
whim, a sense of discovery, or the onset of boredom (Markoff et al., 1975:5-6).
In order to insure a systematic study the researcher must define the coding unit, and employ a fixed set of questions in the analysis. The coding unit for this study is the character. Each major and secondary character in the sample novels was analyzed and coded. Appendix B presents and explains the coding sheets for this study.
Sample: The sample for this study was drawn from two sourcebooks: Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection (1976), by Chris Steinbrunner and Otto Penzler, and Twentieth Century Crime and Mystery Uriters (1980), by John M. Reilly.* These two sourcebooks are the most comprehensive mystery reference books available, and together provide biographical and bibliographical information on a total of
658 (or 1,219, counting pseudonyms) twentieth-century,
English-writing mystery novelists. In order to examine changes in gender characterization over time, the sample covers three particular points in time: mystery novels written in 1955, 1965, and 1975. Using the two mystery sourcebooks, lists of all of the mystery novels in the three target years were compiled. Three samples, stratified by sex of author, were drawn from these lists. The stratification of the sample was necessary because the sex ratio of mystery authors is very uneven 123
(approximately three out of every four mystery authors are male), and some prior research on other forms of literature has indicated that sex of author can play an important role
in style of writing.2 For example, one study that looked at the reflection theory in American novels noted certain demographic-type differences between the writing of men and women authors. These researchers found that women were more likely to write about female protagonists, while men were more likely to write about male protagonists, and that women
were more likely to locate their action inside the home, whereas men were more likely to use outside locations (Griswold, 1981) .
Another study found that while female writers are "concerned with creating fiction that has social purpose" and that can "inspire the reader and improve the human condition," male writers are less concerned with social purpose and instead tend to write fiction that permits "both the reader and the writer to escape for a little while..." (Kissel, 1981:41).
The populations for this study included 249 mystery novels by 125 male authors, and 73 mystery novels by 48 female authors in 1955; 282 mystery novels by 148 male authors, and 79 mystery novels by 52 female authors in 1965; and 256 mystery novels by 152 male authors, and 78 mystery novels by 56 female authors in 1975.3 The sample for the 124 study w^s randomly selected and included 20 mystery novels by male authors, and 26 mystery novels by female authors in 1955; 33 mystery novels by male authors, and 29 mystery
novels by female authors in 1965; and 34 mystery novels by male authors, and 21 mystery novels by female authors in 1975.* Ninety-seven of the original 163 novels in the sample were available in Connecticut libraries. Sixty-two of the remaining 66 novels were accessible through the
inter-library loan program or were available for purchase. Two of the remaining 4 novels were not available, but in both cases the authors had written more than one mystery novel in the sample year, and the sample books were replaced by mystery novels written in the designated years by the same authors. The remaining two books were not available through the inter-library loan program or through their publishers. These two books, a 1955 mystery and a 1975 mystery, were dropped from the sample and replaced by two new books. The two new books were randomly selected from the appropriate populations without replacement. Appendix C supplies a list of the novels included in this study. ENDNOTES
iThe traditional approach to studying fiction in the sociology of literature has been to examine classics or best-sellers (Griswold, 1981:746). In the case of the mystery novel, a study employing best-sellers would only cover a very narrow range of mystery authors. HacKett and Burke have produced a list of all of the mystery best-sellers (using the traditional definition of a best-seller being a book with sales of over 2,000,000 copies) between 1895 and 1975 (1977). This list includes 51 mysteries, but of these 51 books, 45 are by three authors (25 by Erie Stanley Gardner; 12 by Ian Fleming; and 8 by Mickey Spillane). The two sourcebooks used to compile the population of mystery novels for this study are the most comprehensive mystery reference books available, and together they provide lists of all of the mystery stories written by a total of 658 twentieth-century, English-writing authors. These two sourcebooks were compiled with the aid of 157 contributors and advisers. While these two sourcebooks attempt to provide a comprehensive examination of the mystery field, it is likely that some of the less-read authors in this genre have been excluded. A list of all mystery fiction published would be a preferable population source, however such a list does not exist. In the case of my study, using a population source that probably excludes some of the less-read authors will mean that the results of the study can only be generalized to the more popular or more likely to be read mystery fiction. While a more broadly generalizable study would be preferable, the tendency for researchers in the sociology of literature to study classics or best-sellers means that it is not unusual for research in this field to be of even more strictly limited generalizability.
In addition to the two sourcebooks used to compile the population of mystery novels, a third reference source. The Writers Directory 1982-84, (Gale Research Company, Detroit, MI, 1981) , was also employed to supply some biographical information for authors whose biographies in the other two sourcebooks were incomplete.
2A weighting procedure was employed on the samples when it was necessary to correct the gender bias created by the
125 126 disproportionate sampling. The weighting procedure employed for this study was taKen from the SPSS manual (SPSS: Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. 2d ed., by Norman H. Nie, C. Hadlai Hull, Jean G. Jenkins, Karin Steinbrenner, and Dale H. Dent. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975) .
3Mystery authors who have written more than one book in any of the three sample years had a higher probability of being included in the sample because these authors were represented more frequently in the study's population than authors with only one book. However, in order to avoid the statistical problems generated by nonindependence of events, only one book from each author was included in each of the samples. In other words, once a book by a particular author was selected for inclusion in the study, any additional books by this same author, in this sample, were deleted from the population list. 127
*The "N’s" for the samples were derived using the following formula (Meter et al., 1973:285-86)s#
P (1 - P) n =
h2 Pd-P) __ +____ _
z2 N
The formula was calculated six times (three sample years, stratified by sex). The value for "p" in the formula represents the proportion of books in each sample that are estimated to be high in sexrole stereotyping. The constant values for this formula are: <* = .10, z = 1.645 h = .10 N = Mumber of Male or Female Authors in each Year The remaining values for the six calculations of the formula can be derived from he following chart: 1955 (Male sample) 1965 (Male sample) 1975 (Male sample)
249 mystery novels 282 mystery novels 256 mystery novels 125 authors 148 authors 152 authors p = .9 p = .8 p ~ .2 1955 (Female sample) 1965 (Female sample) 1975 (Female sample)
73 mystery novels 79 mystery novels 78 mystery novels 48 authors 52 authors 56 authors p = .7 p = . 5 p = .15
$Using this formula, the resulting sample size will permit us to assume, with a confidence level of 90%, that the population proportion is within a width of plus or minus 10% of the sample proportion. Chapter VI RESEARCH FINDINGS
6.1 THE TREATMENT OF MEN AND WOMEN CHARACTERS IN MYSTERY novels
The first two research questions for this study ask how the images of men and women characters in contemporary American murder mystery fiction compare, and how these images have changed over time. The findings, as described below, show that there are some important differences in the portrayal of male and female characters, and many of these differences are of long standing.
Visibility is one area of difference. There are 1,575 major and secondary characters in the three samples, and 65% of these characters are male, while 35% are female. The percentage of male and female characters changed little over the three sample periods (Table 1). Male characters are significantly more likely to be major characters in the novels, while female characters are more frequently secondary characters (Table 2}. A breakdown by year (Table 3) shows little variation across time in the percentage of male and female major and secondary characters, although there does appear to be a
126 129
r------| Table 1: Percent of Male and Female Characters by Year.* |
1955 1965 1975
Male 65% 62% 68%
Female 35 38 32
N (435) (570) (570) | *A11 of the tables have been weighted to reflect | j the true proportion of male and female authors j | in the three sample years. All of the N's reported | | in the tables are the true N's. Because of the | j weighting, some of the percentages may not appear to j j correspond to the reported N's. j
| Table 2: Character Type by Character Sex for all Samples.|
Male Female
Major* 55% 42%
Secondary* 45 58
N (989) (586)
| *A difference of proportions test comparing male and | j female characters on character type shows the findings j j to be statistically significant at the .001 level. |
trend toward less major characters, and consequently more secondary characters, in both sexes. The occupations assigned to the characters vary by sex as well (Table 4). While more than a quarter of the male characters are private eyes. spies, or police 130
| Table 3: Character Type by Character Sex by Year. |
I 1955 1965 1975 |
Male Female Male Female Male Female Major* 57% 45% 55% 43% 53% 37%
Secondary* 43 55 45 57 47 63
N (270) (165) (343) (227) (376) (194)
| ^Difference of proportions tests comparing male and | j female characters in each of the three sample periods | j show these findings to be significant at the .01 level. j officers—three of the more important occupational roles in mystery stories—only 4% of the women fall into this group. This difference in percentages is statistically significant at the .001 level. Men characters are twice as likely as women characters to be criminals or deviants, and half of the 4% of women criminals are purveyors of various illegal or deviant sexual services. No male criminal falls into this category. A full third of the male characters are either business executives, professionals, or military, government, or religious leaders. Only 5% of the women characters can be assigned to these professions, and no women at all are classified as leaders. Women characters are more likely than men characters to be found in the traditional female occupations (nurses, teachers, librarians, secretaries. 131
Table 4: Character Occupation by Character Sex. (Appendix B contains a list of the occupations included within each category.) Male Female Private Eyes and Spies# 11% 3% Police or FBI# 16 1 Criminals or Deviants# 11 4
Professionals andExecutives# 28 5 Leaders# 5 0
Traditional Female Jobs# 2 14
Pink and Blue Collar Jobs### 7 10 Servants## 2 5 Artists and Entertainers## 8 12
No Occupation# 1 34 Other 10 12
N (989) (586)
Difference of Proportions Test: # Significant at .001 level ## Significant at .01 level ### Significant at .05 level etc.), and in the artist and entertainer category, but the largest difference between the sexes appears in the "No Occupation” category. Thirty-four percent of the women characters are unemployed as compared to only 1% of the men characters. Table 5 breaks down the occupation classifications of the two sexes by the three sample periods. There is very little 132 change across the years in the occupational categories of the ir.en and women characters. Women characters are no more likely to be a private detective or a secret agent in 1975 than they were in 1955. Likewise for women as business executives or professionals, and an equal percentage of
(Table 5: Character Occupation by Character Sex by Year. | 1 1 1 19 55 1965 1975 1 1 Male Female Male Female Male Female 1 (Eyes and Spies ** 10% 3% 11% 3% 11% 3% j (Police, FBI* 15 0 18 1 14 1 1 (Criminals*** 15 5 8 4 12 5 1 (Execs and Pros* 26 4 29 5 29 5 1 (Leaders** 7 0 5 0 3 0 1| (Female Jobs* 2 12 2 16 1 11 1 |Pink and Blue 5 11 7 12 7 8 i J Servants 3 5 2 3 2 9 1 1 jArtists 8 15 8 13 8 9 1i |No Job* 1 34 2 33 1 35 1i | Other 9 11 9 11 12 15 1 1 | N (270) (165) (343) (227) (376) (194) 1 1 (Difference of proportions tests comparing male and female (characters in each of the three time periods on each (occupation: j* Significant at the .001 level (** Significant at the .01 level (*** Significant at the .05 level L .J women are unemployed in 1975 as in 1955. 133
Educational level is not a variable frequently employed by mystery authors. Most of the characters in this sample are never identified in terms of their educational achievements. Only 17% of the characters in all three samples are identified as having gone to either college or graduate school, but there is a statistically significant difference at the .001 level in the percentages of male and female characters identified as college-educated and graduate school-educated. The vast majority of the remaining 83% of the characters are not described in terms of education. Of the 273 characters who did go to college, 82% are male and 18% are female. These percentages do not change much over the three time periods sampled. In 1955, 84% of the college-educated characters are male, as compared
to 81% in 1965, and 82% in 1975.
Only 8% of the characters went on to graduate school (including law and medicine), and 91% of these characters are male. Again, this percentage barely changes over the three time periods. In 1955, 91% of the grad-school educated characters are male, as compared to 92% in 1965, and 91% in 1975.
An interesting, and recurring, pattern appears in the findings on the age of the characters (Tables 6 and 7). Three times as many women characters as men characters are
described as under 30 years of age.1 A similar discrepancy 134 r------1 Table 6: Character Age by Character Sex for all Samples. |
Male Female Under 30* 11% 36% 30 to 39 14 13 40 to 49** 11 7
50 to 59 7 5 60 and up 3 4 Unknown* 54 34
N (989) (586)
| Difference of Proportions Test: | | * Significant at the .001 level I j ** Significant at the .01 level j in percentages is found in each of the three time periods, although the difference is somewhat lower in 1955. Fairly equal percentages of male and female characters are found in the "30 to 39" years old age category, as well as in the "40 to 49" years old age group, the "50 to 59" years old age division, and in the "60 and Over" age group. The difference in percentages between the men and women characters that is found in the "Under 30" age group is largely made up for in the "Age Unknown" category, which is more heavily male than female.
Sometimes a character's specific age can be unknown, but the character's descriptive age or general age is reported. Tables 0 and 9 present the percentage of characters 135
Table 7: iCharacter Age by Character Sex by Year.
1955 1965 1975
Male Female Male Female Male Female Under 30* 14% 37% 11% 39% 9% 31% 30 to 39 13 16 14 13 14 12
40 to 49 8 4 14 9 13 9 50 to 59 5 4 7 8 8 3 60 and up 2 3 3 3 4 5
Unknown** 58 36 52 29 52 41
N (270) (165) (343) (227) (376) (194)
[Difference of proportions tests comparing male and [ |female characters in each of the three time periods j Jon age: | [s Significant at the .001 level I |Significant at the .01 level I t______j identified as young (which would also include those characters identified as under 40 years old), middleaged (including characters 40 to 60 years old) , and old
(including characters over 60). Twice as many women characters as men characters are identified as young, although when these variables are broKen down by year the percentage difference between men and women characters is slightly less in 1975 than in 1965 or 1955. Fairly equal percentages of men and women characters fall into the middleaged and old categories and 136
| Table 3: Character Age Category by Character Sex. |
Male Female Young5* 32% 64% Middleaged5*5* 22 16 Old5*5*5* 9 6
Unknown5* 36 14
N (989) (586)
| Difference of Proportions Tests: | | * Significant at the .001 level | | Significant at the .01 level j j *£* Significant at the .05 level j there is little difference across time in either of these groups. Twice as many men as women are not age identified
| Table 9: Character Age Category by Character Sex by Year.J
1955 1965 1975
Male Female Male Female Male Femalej Young5* 37% 71% 30% 65% 30% 55% | Middleaged 17 10 25 19 24 19 |
Old 10 6 9 5 9 6 1 Unknown5* 35 13 37 11 37 20 | N (270) (165) (343) (227) (376) (194) |
| Difference of proportions tests comparing male and j female characters in each of the three time periods | on age category: | * Significant at the .001 level even in a general sense. 137
Women characters are more frequently age-identified than men characters, and they are also more likely to be identified by marital status (Table 10). While the marital status of 31% of the male characters is never reported, the corresponding figure for women characters is only 3%. More women characters are identified as married, divorced, and widowed than men, but the difference in each of these categories is less than 5%. The largest difference is in the "Single" category; while nearly half (48%) of the women characters are single, only about one-third (32%) of the men
Table 10: Character Marital Status by Character Sex.
Male Female
Single* 32% 48%
Married*** 26 30 Divorced or Separated** 5 9 Widowed** 6 10 Unknown* 31 3
N (989) (586)
| Difference of Proportions Test: I | * Significant at the .001 level I | ** Significant at the .01 level | | $*$ Significant at the .05 level j characters fall into this group. Part of the difference in the percentage of single men and women can probably be attributed to the difference in 138 the percentage of young men and young women. There are more young women characters than young men characters, and younger people are more likely to be single than older people.
The large difference in the percentage of men characters whose marital status is unreported and the percentage of women characters whose marital status is unreported remains constant over the three time periods (Table 11), but there is a significant change (at the .05 level) in the percentage of single men and women characters. While U4% of the characters are single in 1955, 37% are single in 1965, and 31% are single in 1975. Both character sexes experience a significant decline, at the .01 level, in percentage single across the years. Host of the difference in the percentage of single characters over the three time periods seems to be made up in the percentage of married characters, which rises for both sexes across the time span studied. In addition to being more frequently age-identified and marital status-identified than men characters, women characters are also more likely to be identified in terras of whether or not they are a parent (Table 12). While more than half of the men characters (excluding those never married) fall into the "Unknown” category with respect to their parenting status, only one-fifth of the women characters are in this unknown group. One-quarter of the 139
r------1 | Table 11: Character Marital Status by Character Sex | j by Year. j
I 1955 1965 1975 I Male Female Male Female Male Female Single** 39% 55% 30% 48% 28% 38%
Married 22 26 27 29 29 36 Divorced 5 7 5 9 5 11 Widowed 5 9 7 10 7 12
Unknown* 29 3 32 4 32 3
N (270) (165) (343) (227) (376) (194)
| Difference of proportions tests comparing male and female) | characters in each of the three time periods on marital j j status: j | * Significant at the .001 level j | Significant at the .01 level j men characters who have been married at some point are reported to be parents. The corresponding figure for women characters is 36%, and while there are more women characters who aren’t parents than women characters who are, the difference between these two groups is not large (44% vs. 36%) and can again most likely be attributed to the large percentage of young women in the sample. A breakdown by year shows little variation in the percentages of parents, nonparents, and unknowns across the years (Table 13). 140
| Table 12: Character Parenting Status by Character Sex | j for all Samples (excluding never-married | j characters). | I I | Male Female | I I | Parent* 25% 36% | I I | Nonparent* 18 44 | I I | Unknown* 57 20 | I I I t | N (670) (320) | I I I I | Difference of Proportions Test: j j *Significant at the .001 level j
| Table 13: Character Parenting Status by Character Sex by | I Year (excluding never-married characters). j I I | 1955 1965 1975 | I I I Male Female Male Female Male Feraalej I I | Parent 23% 32% 25% 41% 27% 34% | t I | Nonparent* 23 50 16 39 16 44 | I t | Unknown* 54 18 59 20 57 22 | I I I I | N (163) (75) (236) (123) (271) (122) | I I I I | Difference of proportions test comparing male and female j j characters in each of the three time periods on parenting! j status: | | * Significant at the .001 level j
The roles played by the characters in the mystery of the story vary by sex (Table 14). Women characters are somewhat more likely to be the murder victim than men characters. They are also more likely to be the victim of other crimes 141
that occur in those stories. When the two victim categories are collapsed together the findings show tnat women characters are twice as likely to be victims as men characters (30% to 14%), and this difference in proportions is significant at the .001 level. Men characters, however, are twice as likely to be murderers than women characters (13% to 6%). The percentages of accomplices, suspects, criminal perpetrators other than murderers, and murderers, who themselves end up six feet under, are fairly similar for men and women characters. Larger differences show up in the number of men and women who play the major roles in the mystery—the detectives—or who play no role in the mystery at all. Only 1% of the women characters play the major detective role, and another 3% play a secondary detective role, usually someone assisting the primary detective.
Fourteen percent of the men characters play the major detective role, and another 10% play the role of the secondary detective. Women characters are more likely to
play no role in the mystery than men characters. Table 15 shows that there is very little variation in the roles played by male and female characters over the three
time periods. Women are hardly more likely to play a detective role, either major or secondary, in 1975 than they were in 1955. Similarly, close to half of all women
characters play no role in the mystery, and this figure remains constant throughout the three time periods. 142
| Table 14: Character Role by Character Sex for all | j Samples I
Male Female
Murder Victim* 11% 17% Other Victim* 3 13
Murderer* 13 6 Accomplice 2 3 Suspect*** 11 8
Detective* 14 1 Secondary Detective* 10 3 Murderer-Murder Victim 1 1
Other Perpetrator*** 6 4 No Role* 29 44
N (989) (586)
| Difference of Proportions Test: | | * Significant at the .001 level j | ** Significant at the .01 level j j Significant at the .05 level I
The "Other Victim" role can be further broKen down into victimization by five distinct criminal acts (Table 16). While only a small percentage of all of the characters are given this role (7%), the percentage for women characters is twice as large. Three-quarters of these women are victims of attempted murder or kidnapping, while another 19% fall prey to blackmail. Fewer men characters are kidnapped or 143
liable 15: Character Role by Character Sex by Year. |
| 1955 1965 1975 |
Male Female Male Female Male Female Murder Victim 13% 19% 7% 17% 13% 14% Other Victim** 3 16 1 11 7 14
Murderer*** 15 6 14 6 10 5 Accomplice 3 6 3 0 1 2 Suspect 12 8 11 9 9 8
Detective* 15 1 14 1 12 2 Secondary Det.** 10 3 11 3 9 3 Murderer-Victim 1 1 1 1 3 1
Other Perpetrator 2 0 6 7 9 5 No Role** 27 41 33 46 27 45
N (270) (165) (343) (227) (376) (194)
|Difference of proportions tests comparing male and female | jcharacters in each of the three time periods on role: | I* Significant at the .001 level | I** Significant at the .01 level | Significant at the .05 level | are victims of attempted murder, but they are more liKely to be robbed or defrauded, and while the percentage of women characters victimized by other crimes is relatively stable across the three time periods, the bulk of male nonhomicide victimizations occur in 1975 (25 out of 35, or 11%) . 144
Table 16: Other Victimizations by Character Sex for all Samples.
Male Female
Robbery, Fraud* 26% 4%
Rape 0 1 Kidnapping** 16 39 Blackmail 25 19
Attempted Murder 32 37
N (35) (75)
Difference of Proportions Test: * Significant at the .001 level ** Significant at the .01 level The way that the characters behave during the course of the story also varies by sex. Table 17 presents a list of character behaviors broken down into 4 types: aggressive behavior/ victim behavior, sexual behavior, and traditional female behavior. Men characters are more likely to have performed all of the aggressive and all of the victim behaviors than women characters, but the difference in percentages between the sexes for victim behaviors is considerably smaller than the difference in percentages for aggressive behaviors. For example, while there is a 19% difference in the percentage of men and women who physically hurt or attack another character, there is only a 6% difference in the percentage 145 r------n j Table 17: Character Behaviors by Character Sex. | | Male Female j | (N = 989) (N=586) | | A^ressiye Behaviors j
| Carries a Weapon* 21% 4% | 1 t m rH 1 CO | Threatens Someone with a Weapon# Ii | Physically Hurts or Attacks Someone* 27 8 |
Victim Behaviors | Is Threatened with a Weapon* 18 10 | 1 i | Is Physically Hurt or Attacked** 33 27 |
Sexual Behavior | Engages in Voluntary Sex* 6 11 |
TratUjlonal Female Behaviors
| Cries, Weeps, or Sobs* 4 29 | 1 | | Cleans, Dusts, or Vacuums# 2 7 | i j | Cooks or Prepares a Meal* 3 19 | 1 1 1 1 | Difference of Proportions Test: 1 | * Significant at the .001 level 1 | ** Significant at the .01 level 1 of men and women who are physically hurt or attacked by
another character. An interesting development occurs with regard to sexual
behavior; the findings show that more women characters than men characters engage in voluntary sexual relations. While
there are 54 men characters who engage in sex in the novels. 146 there are 60 women characters who do likewise. This discrepancy in partner count is due to the fact that some of the men characters sleep with more than one woman over the course of the story. Women characters are more likely to be portrayed behaving in what could be considered traditional female ways: crying, cooking, and cleaning. Twenty-nine percent of the women characters cry during the story compared to only 4X of the men characters. Nineteen percent of the women characters cook, as compared to 3% of the men characters. Very few men or women characters clean (2% and 7%, respectively). For the most part, there is little change across the years in male and female aggressive or victim behaviors, although the percentage of women characters who are hurt or attacked decreases significantly (at the .01 level) from about one-third of the women characters in 1955 to around one-fifth of the women characters in 1975 (Table 18). Sexual behavior increases significantly, at the .01 level, over the time span for both sexes. Fifty percent of all of the characters engaging in voluntary sex appear in the 1975 sample (although the partner discrepancy does appear each year). There is a 10% change, that is significant at the .05 level, in the percentage of women characters wno cry in 1955, as compared to the percentage crying in 1965 and 1975.
While more than a third of the 1955 women characters cry at 147
Table 18: Character Behaviors by Character Sex by Year |
1955 1965 1975
Male Female Male Female Male Female
N (270) (165) (343) (227) (376) (194) Aggressive
Carries Weapon* 21% 4% 00 5% 23% 5% Threatens* 19 2 14 4 23 4 Hurts or Attacks* 31 10 25 7 26 8
Victim
Is Threatened 20 10 15 5 19 15 Is Hurt 39 34 27 25 33 22
Sexual
Engages in Sex*** 4 8 4 8 9 20
Female
Cries* 5 36 3 26 5 25 Cleans*** 2 10 2 7 2 5
Cooks* 2 17 2 19 6 22
Difference of proportions test comparing male and female characters in each of the three time periods on behavior: * Significant at the . 001 level ss Significant at the .01 level ss* Significant at the .05 level some point, only a quarter of the 1965 and 1975 women characters do likewise There is very little change in the 148 percentage of men or women cleaning or cooking over the years.
6.2 THE BELA1IQNSHIE BETWEEN AUTUQE CHARACTERISTICS AND GENDER PORTRAYAL IN MYSTERY NOVELS The third research question for this study asks how author variables, such as sex, age, or country of origin, affect the portrayal of male and female characters. The fourth research question takes the third question one step further by questioning the relationship between author variables and gender portrayal over time. Table 19 presents information about the authors sampled for this study. As this table reveals, almost three-quarters of the authors from each sample year are male. More authors fall into the "Under 40" age category in 1955 than in 1965 or 1975, and a larger percentage of the 1975 authors are 50 or older (67% vs. 46% in 1955, and 57% in 1965). Approximately one-third of the authors in each of the three sample years doesn*t have a college education. More than half of the authors did go to college, and about one-fifth went on to graduate school. The bulk of the authors are fulltime writers, and over seventy-five percent of them are married. Almost three-quarters of the authors chosen in 1955 are from the United States, but the authors selected for 1965 and 1975 are more evenly divided between
Britons and Americans. More than 60% of the authors from 149 r Table 19: Author Variables by Year I 1955 1965 1975| Sex: Male 72% 74% 73% | Female 28 26 27 | 1 Age: Under 40 26 14 7 1 40 to 49 28 29 27 | 50 to 59 32 32 36 | 60 or Over 14 25 31 I (Missing Vaiues=8) 1 Education: High School 30 30 34 | College 54 48 40 | Grad School 16 22 26 | (Missing Values=9) 1 | Job: Fulltime Writer 69 59 66 | Business or Professional 2 13 19 | Publishing, Communications 18 16 8 1 Other 11 12 7 1 (Missing Values=5) 1 Marital Status: Single 18 15 16 | Married 77 80 77 | Divorced 4 3 4 1 Widowed 1 2 3 1 (Missing Values=12) 1 Country: United States 73 51 45 | Great Britain 22 48 54 | Other 5 1 1 1 I Prior Mysteries: 5 or Less 46 19 31 1 6 to 10 13 19 7 1 11 to 20 11 21 24 | 21 to 49 21 31 22 | 50 and Up 9 10 16 | 1 Style: Classic Puzzler 14 10 15 I Suspense/Chase and Adv. 28 27 19 | Gothic/Damsel in Distress 7 9 6 1 Police Procedural 4 8 8 1 Private Eye 29 31 33 | Spy 10 5 11 1 Other 8 10 8 1 1 Pseudonym: Yes—same sex 26 32 29 | Yes—opposite sex 2 4 3 1 No 72 64 68 | N (4 6) (62) (55) | 150
1965 and 1975 have written over ten prior mysteries, but the majority of the 1955 authors fall into the "lO or Less" prior mysteries category. The percentage of authors writing classic puzzlers, spy stories, gothic or damsel in distress stories, and police procedurals does not change markedly over time. Suspense and chase and adventure mysteries run between almost one-fifth to over one-quarter of the sample depending on the year, and private eye mysteries capture almost a third of the sample novels. Lastly, slightly more authors used pseudonyms in 1965, but the bulk of the authors in all three sample years chose to write under their real names.
In order to examine the relationship between author variables and gender portrayal, the sample novels were divided into three groups: mysteries low in female character sexrole stereotyping, mysteries high in female character sexrole stereotyping, and mysteries in between the other two groups, or, in other words, at a medium level of female character sexrole stereotyping. The criteria employed to assign the novels to the three categories are as
follows: If more than one female character has a college or graduate school education, or
if more than one female character is employed as a business executive, a professional, a police officer, a private detective, or a secret agent, or 151 if a female character plays the major detective role, or more than one female character plays the secondary detective role, or if one female character has a college education, and another female character is given one of the occupations listed above, or if none of the above applies but more than half of the characters are women, and more than half of these women do not cry, cook, clean, or play a victim role, then the mystery is classified as low in female character sexrole stereotyping.
If one female character has a college or graduate school education, or if one female character is employed as a business executive, a professional, a police officer, a private detective, or a secret agent, or if one female character plays the secondary detective role, or if none of the above applies, but half of the characters are women and half of these women do not cry, cook, clean, or play a victim role, then the mystery is at a medium level in female character sexrole stereotyping.
If every female character does not have a college education, and if every female character is employed in a traditional female job, or as a servant, an entertainer, an artist, a blue or pink collar worker, a criminal, or has no job at all, and if no female characters play either detective role, and if all of the above applies, and less than half of the characters are women, or half or more of the characters are women, but more than half of these women cry, cook, clean, or play a victim role th^n the mystery is classified as high in female character sexrole stereotyping. 152
Seventy-nine of the sample novels, or U8%, fell into the high sexrole stereotyping category. Fifty-eight of the novels, or 36", were at a medium level of stereotyping, and the remaining 26 novels, or 16", were low in sexrole stereotyping. More women authors than men authors wrote mysteries low
in sexrole stereotyping (Table 20). Approximately an equal percentage of male and female authors wrote mysteries with a medium level of stereotyping, and more men than women were in the high stereotyping category, but this difference is not statistically significant. A breakdown of stereotyping for men and women authors by year reveals a small, but fairly consistent, rise in the percentage of authors in the low stereotyping category (Table 21). When the two sexes are added together, 7% of the novels in the 1955 sample fall into the low stereotyping group. This percentage doubles in 1965 to 14", and then rises three more points ten years later.
There is a persistent difference in the percentage of men and women in the low stereotyping category. This difference is largest in 1965, and smallest in 1975, although the difference in 1975 is only one point lower than the difference in 1955. In addition, an almost equal percentage of male and female authors in 1975 can be found in the high stereotyping category. 153
| Table 20: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping | | by Author's Sex for all Samples j 1 Male Authors Female Authors 1 1I | Lows 9% 22% 1 1i j Medium 36 34 1 1 | High 54 43 1 1 1 1 N (87) (76) 1 1 1 j Difference of Proportions Test: 1 j s Significant at the .05 level 1
| Table 21: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by 1 Author's Sex by Year. 1 1 1955 1965 1975 | 1i Male Female Male Female Male Feraalej 1 j Low 5% 15% 9% 28%s 15% 24% | i | Medium 35 31 36 41 38 29 | 1 | High 60 54 55 31* 47 48 | 1 1 1 N (20) (26) (33) (29) (34) (21) | 1 1 1 j ^Difference of proportions tests comparing male and | j female authors in this sample on sexrole stereotyping j | shows statistical significance at the .05 level. j
When the mystery authors are classified by age. meaning the author's age at the time the mystery was published, the percentage of authors in the low and medium stereotyping categories ranges from a low of 35% to a high of 57%, with the direction of increase aligned with the increase in 154 author age (Table 22). In other words, the authors in the oldest age category—60 and over—have the highest percentage of low and medium stereotyping, while the authors
in the youngest age group—under 40—have the lowest. This difference in percentages is significant at the .05 level. This finding may be partly attributed to the fact that 53% of the authors under 40 years of age are in the 1955 sample, the sample that, not surprisingly, has the smallest percentage in the low sexrole stereotyping category. But this finding cannot be wholly explained by the large percentage of young authors in 1955, because when the authors are divided into two age brackets—under 50, and 50 and over—the findings for 1955 show that three times as many of the authors in the older age group fall into the low stereotyping category as authors in the younger age bracket
(Table 23). This difference in percentage continues in 1965, and it is only in 1975 that the percentage of young authors outweighs the percentage of older authors in the low stereotyping category. It is also in 1975 that the percentage of younger and older authors in the high stereotyping category becomes even, just as in 1975 the percentage of male and female authors in this category also becomes even. Again the findings show that by 1975 less than half of all the men authors and women authors, and less than half of all the 155
Table 22: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by Author’s Age for all Samples.
Under 40 40 to 49 50 to 59 60 and Low 6% 11% 15% 16% Medium 29 36 34 41 High 65 53 51 43
N (23) (42) (53) (37)
(Missing Values=8)
| Chi S'juare=6.0*J; df=6; not statistically significant | j at the .05 level; Cramer's V=.ll j authors under 50 years old and over 50 years old wrote novels high in female character sexrole stereotyping. Or, to look at it from another perspective, by 1975 more than half of all the authors, of either sex, and more than half of all the authors, of any age, wrote novels that were at a low or medium level of sexrole stereotyping. Women authors and older authors reached this halfway point earlier, however. More than half of the women authors, and more than half of the authors 50 years old and older wrote novels low or medium in sexrole stereotyping in 1965, as well.
Education affects stereotyping in mystery novels (Table 24). While the percentage of novels in the low stereotyping category does not change markedly as author’s level of education increases, there is a 20 point difference between the percentage of authors with a high school education (65S) 156
r------| Table 23: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by | j Author's Age by Year.* j
1955 1965 1975 Under 50 50 up Under 50 50 up Under 50 50 up Low 4% 12% 6% 18% 242 14% Medium 31 37 40 38 28 38 High 65 51 54 44 48 48
N (23) (21) (26) (33) (16) (36) | (Missing Values=2, 3, 3) I I I I I | $No statistically significant difference of proportions | | between the two age groups in any year. j and the percentage of authors with a graduate school education (*45%) in the high stereotyping category. A difference of proportions test shows this difference to be significant at the .05 level. There is little difference in the amount of stereotyping between the authors with a college education and the authors with a graduate or professional school education. When the authors are divided into two groups—those with a high school education, and those with a college or graduate school education—and examined by year, a large difference is found in the percentage of high-school educated authors and college-educated authors in the high stereotyping category in 1955 (Table 25). This pattern also exists in 1965 and 1975, although the difference is not 157
| Table 24: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by | | Author's Education for all Samples. | High School College Grad School Low 10% 12% 16% Medium 25 40 38
High 65 48 45
N («9) (74) (31) | (Missing Values=9) | I I I I | Chi Square=8.30; df=4; significant at the .08 level; | | Cramer's V=.i2 j t______j significant in the latter two samples. In 1955 the majority of authors from both education groups wrote mystery novels high in stereotyping. In 1965 and 1975, the majority of authors with a high school level of education wrote mystery novels high in stereotyping, but the majority of authors with a college level education wrote novels that were medium to low in sexrole stereotyping. Author occupation does not seem to have much effect on female character sexrole stereotyping (Table 26). While authors who are fulltime writers have the highest percentage in the low stereotyping category, they also have the highest percentage in the high stereotyping category. There are no dramatic percentage differences in stereotyping by author's occupation. Since the vast majority of the authors are 158
r------| Table 25: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by | j Author's Education by Year. I
1955 1965 1975
High S. College High S. College High S. College
Low 9% 14% 12% 12% 21% Medium 16 40 30 41 28 37 High 80 51* 56 47 60 42
N (13) (30) (17) (42) (19) (33) (Missing Values=3, 3, 3)
^Difference of proportions test shows significance at the .05 level.
Table 26: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by Author's Occupation for all Samples. Fulltime Busi. Exec., Publishing, Other Writer Professional Communications Low 15% 13% 9% 6%
Medium 31 45 39 46 High 54 42 52 48
N (106) (18) (18) (16) (Missing Values=5)
| Chi Square=5.47; df=6; not statistically significant at | | the .05 level; Cramer's V=.10 j fulltime writers, a breakdown by year is of little value due to the small numbers in many of the cells, but, for the record, the findings show little variation across time. 159 although the percentage of authors who are employed as fulltime writers in the low stereotyping category doubled from 1955 to 1975, rising from 10% to 20%. However this change in percentages came almost entirely from authors moving out of the medium category rather than the high category. The findings show that 57% of the fulltime writers are in the high stereotyping group in 1955; twenty years later, 54% of the fulltime writers fall into this category. Married authors are significantly less likely to be low in stereotyping than single authors (Table 27). A difference of proportions test shows the difference in percentages between single and married authors in the low stereotyping category to be significant at the .05 level. This pattern holds for 1955 and 1975, but is reversed in 1965, but again the low cell numbers for most of the marital status categories make a breakdown by year impractical. Almost twice as many British authors as American authors are found in the low stereotyping group (Table 28)•
However, while more British authors than American authors are in the low stereotyping group, more British authors are also in the high stereotyping group. This same pattern occurs in 1965 and in 1975 (Table 29). In 1955, five times as many British as American authors are in the low stereotyping group, but an almost equal percentage of the 160
Table 27: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by | Author's Marital Status for all Samples. j
Single Married Divorced or Widowed Low 26% 10% 20% Medium 30 30 13 High 52 67
N (29) (111) (11) (Missing Values=12)
Chi Square= 12.63; df=4; statistically significant at the .01 level; Cramer •s V=.l5
Table 28: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by | Author’s Country for all Samples. | United States Great Britain Other 1
| Low 9% 19% 0 1 1 1 | Medium 45 24 16% i 1 1 | High 46 57 84 1 1 1 1 1 1 N (80) (71) («) 1 1 1 1 1 | Chi Square=18.90; df=4; significant at the .0008 1 j level; Cramer's V=.l8 1 two country' s authors are found in the high stereotyping category. 1955 is also the only year in which the majority of American authors can be found in the high stereotyping group. In both of the other two sample years. more than half of the American authors are in the low or medium level 161 of stereotyping, while a majority of the British authors are
r------| Table 29: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by | j Author's Country by Year. (Only four authors j j in the sample were from countries other than j j the United States or Great Britain, and j j consequently these authors were excluded j | from the breaKdown by year.) I
United States Great Britain
1955 Low# 4% 21% Medium 38 26 High 57 53
N (33) (11) 1965 Low 11 18
Medium## 51 22 High# 38 60 N (31) (30)
1975 Low 13 21
Medium# 49 25 High 38 54 N (24) (30)
| Difference of Proportions Test: | # Significant at the .05 level j ## Significant at the .01 level .j consistently in the high stereotyping category. 162
It is difficult to summarize the relationship between female character sexrole stereotyping and the prior number of mysteries written by the authors (Table 30). No clear pattern stands out. When the prior number of mysteries is collapsed into two categories—10 mysteries or less, and over 10 mysteries—the findings show a slightly greater percentage of the more prolific authors in the low stereotyping category, and a slightly smaller percentage of the more prolific authors in the high stereotyping category
(Table 31). This pattern is repeated in 1955 and 1965, but
Table 30: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by Author's Prior Number of Mysteries.
5 or Less 6 to 10 11 to 20 21 to 49 50 and up | Low 7% 12% 21% 18% 3% |
| Medium 49 15 43 30 29 |
| High 44 73 36 52 68 |
I N (49) (23) (35) (39) (17) |
| Chi Square=28.49; df=8; significant at .0004 level; | | Cramer's V=.22 | reversed in 1975 (Table 32). Table 33 examines the relationship between sexrole stereotyping and the author's style of mystery writing. Classic puzzlers show the highest percentage of low stereotyping. A full third of the classic puzzler mysteries fall into the low stereotyping category. Police procedural 163
Table 31: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping Author's Prior Number of Mysteries (collapsed).* 10 or Less Over 10 Low 9% 16%
Medium 38 34 High 53 50
N (72) (91)
| *Mo significant difference of proportions. |
| Table 32: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by | | Author's Prior Number of Mysteries by Year. j
1955 1965 1975
1 to 10 11 up 1 to 10 11 up 1 to 10 11 up
Low 2% 16%* 9% 17% 20% 15% Medium 38 26 36 39 43 31 High 60 58 55 44 37 54
N (26) (20) (26) (36) (20) (35)
| ^Difference of proportion for this pair of proportions | | is significant at the .05 level. No other significant j j difference of proportions. | novels and private eye stories are most frequently high in sexrole stereotyping, and spy stories show the greatest likelihood of being at a medium level of sexrole stereotyping. Suspense and chase and adventure stories, and 164 damsel in distress or gothic mysteries show similar tendencies with regard to sexrole stereotyping. The majority of both of these styles are at a low or medium level of sexrole stereotyping. Although the large number of mystery styles makes a breakdown by year of little value, for the record, a breakdown shows little variation in the relationships between styles and stereotyping across time. Classic puzzlers are consistently the most likely novels to be found in the low stereotyping category, and private eye mysteries and police procedural novels are regularly among
r------liable 33: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by | | Author's Mystery Style for all Samples. | 1 | Classic Suspense Gothic Police Private Spy Other | Puzzler Chase Damsel Story Eye i1 |Low 33% 10% 15% 0 9% 7% 19% 1i IMedium 21 45 41 20 23 82 39 1 (High 46 45 44 60 68 11 42 1 1 |N (29) (1*1) (19) (9) (38) (13) (14) 1 1 |Chi Square= 57.40; df=12 ; significant at the .0000 level; jCramer's V= .32 the highest percentages in the high stereotyping group •
Most of the authors in the sample did not use pseudonym. Thirty percent of the authors did use pseudonym and these authors were significantly more likely
to be found in the low stereotyping category than the 165 authors who used their real names (Table 34). The findings also show a 20 point difference in the percentage of authors using a pseudonym and the percentage of authors writing under their own names in the high stereotyping categories, with the authors writing under their real names being significantly more liKely to write mysteries high in
| Table 34: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by | | Author's Use of Pseudonym for all Samples. | I I j Used Pseudonym Didn't Use Pseudonym |
O 0/ Lows 22% O /o Medium 40 34 High* 38 58
N (49) (114)
^Difference of proportions test significant at the .01 level. stereotyping. A breaKdown by year shows a consistent difference in the amount of stereotyping employed by authors who use or don't
use a pseudonym (Table 35), although the differences in
percentages are only significant in the 1965 sample. Authors using a pseudonym are regularly higher in the low
stereotyping category, and lower in the high stereotyping category than authors who write under their real names. 166
Table 35: Female Character Sexrole Stereotyping by Author's Use of Pseudonym by Year. Used Pseudonym Didn't Use Pseudonym
1955
Low 15% 4% Medium 31 36
High 54 60 N (12) (34) 1965 Low* 27 7
Medium 49 31 High* 24 62 N (19) (43) 1975
Low 20 15 Medium 36 36
High 44 49 N (18) (37)
*Difference of proportions test significant at the .05 level. ENDNOTE
iTwenty-six percent of the 36% of female characters under 30 years of age are in their twenties. The remaining 10% are below 20, and the vast majority of these characters are 17, 18, and 19 years old. There are not many children in mystery stories, and most of the children that do appear are neither major nor secondary characters. Nine percent of the 11% of male characters under 30 years old are in their twenties, and the remaining 2% are under 20 years of age.
167 Chapter VII RECURRENT THEMES IN THE CHARACTERIZATION OF MEN AND WOMEN IN MYSTERY NOVELS
The formulaic aspect of the mystery story can be seen in many of the recurring plots and themes in mystery novels. This chapter will explore some of these formula elements.
Main Characters Almost every mystery novel has a main character around whom much of the action is focused. Most of the main characters are male; the percentage of male to female main characters runs 83?.' to 172. Male authors are much more likely to write about male main characters. Ninety-eight percent of all the main characters in the mysteries written by men authors are male. Likewise, women authors are more likely to write about female main characters, but the difference in the percentage of male and female main characters in the novels by women authors is much smaller. Fifty-seven percent of the women authors employ a female main character, while 432 use a male main character. Male main characters usually solve the mystery in the story. Ninety-three percent of the male main characters written by men authors, and 822 of the male main characters written by women authors end up solving the mystery.
168 169
Overall, that means that over 90% of all the male main characters solve the mystery in the end. This figure does not change significantly over the three sample periods. Ninety-seven percent of the male main characters solve the mystery in 1955, as compared to 92% in 1965, and 87% in
1975. Female main characters are significantly less likely to solve the mystery. Only 22% of the female main characters
solve the mystery in the story. The difference in
percentages between male main characters who solve the mystery and female main characters who solve the mystery is significant at the .001 level. The percentage of female
main characters who are able to solve the mystery does change somewhat over the three sample years, although this change is not significant due to the small number of female
main characters in the sample. In 1955, 7% of the female main characters solve the mystery, as compared to 25% in 1965, and 30% in 1975.1 Yet while there is an almost 25 point jump in the percentage of female main characters who
solve the mystery in the story between the years of 1955 and 1975, the vast majority of the female main characters, even
in 1975, don't solve the mystery. There seems to be a large difference in the plotting of the mystery story depending on the main character's sex. Female main characters are much more likely to appear in
stories in which the mystery runs its own course. or solves 170 itself, without any intentional intervention on their part, while male main characters are much more likely to actively and successfully engage in a search for the mystery's resolution.
Most of the mysteries featuring a male main character (i.e., approximately 97%) fall into one of four plot groups.
The most common plot for male main characters has the main character come across a mystery in the course of his occupation. Seventy-two percent of the mysteries featuring a male main character are what could be called occupational mysteries. The main character in these mysteries usually has an occupation that allows some opportunity for contact with the criminal element. Most of these main characters are lawyers, private investigators, police officers, secret agents, insurance investigators, or crime reporters, and most of the time the main character has no personal involvement in the mystery, at least initially. The mystery almost always begins in a professional context, although frequently the main character becomes personally involved as his relationships with the other characters grow beyond professional constraints. For example, in the 1955 mystery.
Death Has Three Lives by Brett Halliday, a body turns up under the bed in his secretary's apartment, and private investigator Mike Shayne begins to track down the dead man's killer. As Mike gets closer to his target, the target tries to force Mike off of the case by kidnapping his secretary. 171
This, of course, only heightens Mike's resolve, and eventually the killer ends up dead, and the secretary is rescued. Girl on the Run, a 1965 mystery by Hilary Waugh, provides another good example of this type of plot. In this story, the main character, Steve Gregory, is hired to hunt down a young, alleged murderess, Cathy Sinclair, who is suspected of killing her maiden aunt with a bread knife for reasons unknown. Cathy has fled to South America, but has left an easy-to-follow trail, and Steve quickly tracks her down. He is all set to turn her over to the small-town sheriff who hired Steve to find her, when he suddenly realizes that Cathy is indeed innocent of the charges, that the sheriff is most likely the true murderer, and that Cathy's future in the sheriff's hands looks a lot less than promising. Steve then takes matters into his own hands, and, by the end of the story, Steve and Cathy are in love, and the sheriff has unwittingly confessed his complicity before a hidden audience. This particular plot line also appears in many of the 1975 novels. For example, in one 1975 novel. Hangman's Tide, by John Buxton Hilton, a police inspector is investigating the hanging murder of an elderly woman in a small village. The villagers are quick to suspect a somewhat dimwitted fellow from the village, who was known to be friends with the dead woman, but the inspector, upon visiting this 172 fellow, finds him to be friendly and cooperative, adjectives not easily applied to many of the other characters in this story. The inspector sets up a clever trap and eventually snares the real murderer, the dimwitted fellow's stepfather. The second most common mystery plot, the associational mystery, has the male main character directly and personally involved in the mystery right at the onset. In these stories, which make up about 14% of the sample, the mystery usually involves a close friend or family member of the main character. For example, in the 1955 novel Run, Killer. Run, by William Campbell Gault, the main character's wife is murdered and he is falsely imprisoned for this crime. He escapes and spends the rest of the novel tracking down the real killer. The main character is often the prime suspect in these mysteries, mainly because he is usually the one character closest to the murder victim. For example, in the 1965 novel. Verdict Suspended. by Helen Nielsen, Jamie Dodson, the main character, is widely suspected of killing his older sister, Sheilah, who was also his business partner in a successful architect firm. His lawyer is able to use a technicality to keep Jamie from standing trial, but the townspeople informally convict him and openly avoid both Jamie and his new wife. After a short amount of this cold-shoulder treatment, Jamie sets out to find the real killer, who turns out to be Jamie's own lawyer. 173
A third group of mysteries have plots in which the main character is also the target victim. Four percent of the novels with a male main character fall into this group. For example, in Zurlch^flZ 900, a 1975 novel by Martha Albrand, Anton Zeller, a brilliant scientist and the story's main character, is framed for his wife's murder. Imprisoned and awaiting trial, he receives a coded message telling him how to escape. He obeys the message, only to find himself the captive of foreign agents who want him to use his discovery—a vaccine for atherosclerosis—on an important Communist world leader. He begins treatment on the patient, but the vaccine is purposely contaminated by a counter-agent, and the patient dies. Anton gets another opportunity to escape, but again finds himself a hostage—this time by an American drug company that wants to manufacture his vaccine. He is able to enlist the aid of one of his captors and finally escapes, and in the end the murder charges against him are dropped when the police discover that Anton's wife was Killed by one of the foreign agents who had originally Kidnapped Anton. The fourth plot group, which comprises about 7" of the sample, is mysteries in which the male main character is the principal criminal in the story and the mystery is not who did it, but rather will he get away with it. For example, in the 1955 novel. The Talented Mr. Ripley. by Patricia Highsmith, Tom Ripley, the main character. murders his 174
wealthy friend, DicKie Greenleaf, and then assumes his identity. Evidence of the murder surfaces, and Tom is soon suspected of murdering himself, since DicKie seems to be
alive, while Tom is missing. As the police close in, Tom reluctantly gives up his life as DicKie, and he resumes his own identity. DicKie is eventually written off as a suicide
victim, and Tom inherits his estate. Frequently, the principal criminal in these types of stories is not a murderer but rather a criminal of some
other sort. For example, in the 1965 novel Paper Albatross, by Rupert Croft-CooKe, the main character is a banK robber who is trying to avoid police capture after pulling off a
huge heist. A 1975 novel. Bloody Marvelous, by Julian Rathbone, concerns a schoolteacher who takes up drug smuggling during his summer vacation.
While the vast majority of the male main characters become involved in their respective mysteries through their occupation, this is a rare plot form for female main characters. Women main characters usually become involved in the mystery because the mystery concerns a close friend or family member, or because they have witnessed some event
that is integral to the mystery. Seventy-one percent of the mysteries with a female main character in this sample fall into the former plot category, the associational mystery.
Long Body, a 1955 novel by Helen McCloy, is a good example of this type of mystery. In this story, Alice 175
Hazard, the main character, discovers sorae suspicious papers among her late husband's effects after his supposedly accidental fall from a cliff. The papers concern a young woman whom Alice's son has begun dating. Alice begins to suspect that this woman may have had something to do with her husband's death, and she voices her suspicions to her son, who reacts angrily. Shortly thereafter, Alice is almost Killed in a hit-and-run accident, and she is certain that the driver was the very woman in question. This woman soon ends up dead and Alice wonders whether she herself might have left her hospital bed and Killed her in a drugged state. Finally, in the last chapters of the story, Alice visits a psychologist, who is working with the police on the case, and requests his help. Eventually he discovers that the young woman did push Alice's husband off of the cliff in a fury when he rebuffed her attempts to blackmail him about some event that had occurred years earlier. When she tries this same blackmail scheme on another man, who was Alice's husband's best friend, and who was also involved in this seamy event many years before, he kills her. One variation on this sort of theme is when the friend or relative of the main character is not the murder victim in the mystery, but rather the prime suspect. For example, in the 1965 novel. Call After Midnight. by Mignon G. Eberhart,
Jenny Vleedam, the main character, is drawn into a murder investigation when her ex-husband's second wife is fatally 176
shot and he becomes the chief suspect. Or, in the 1975 novel Nursery Tea and Poison. by Anne Morice, Tessa Crichton Price becomes involved in a double murder mystery when she
visits her godmother just as bodies start popping up on her estate. The godmother, who's behaving very suspiciously and
even seems, at one point, to be stalking Tessa with a carving knife, is the natural suspect, although in the end the culprit turns out to be the godmother's daughter, who harbors a rather large streak of insanity.
Eleven percent of the mysteries with a female main character fall into the second plot category, the accidental mystery. In the accidental mystery, the main character is an innocent bystander who is drawn into the mystery by something she sees or hears. For example, in the 1955 novel The Deadly Climate. by Ursula Curtiss, Caroline Emmett
witnesses a murder on a walk though the woods, and then is chased by the murderer who is intent on making Caroline the next victim. Caroline escapes to a nearby farmhouse where she is given shelter for the night, but the murderer knows where she is, and, in fact, lives in the house. Three attempts are made on Caroline's life over the course of this one night, and she is finally rescued, on the brink of suffocation, by the editor of the local newspaper who suspected that something was amiss at the old farmhouse.
A similar plot line appears in the 1965 novel In a Glass Darkly, by Janet Caird. In this story, Margaret Maclean 177 observes a murder being committed through a telescope-like instrument in a museum attic, but she loses the image before she can identify the location of the crime. She pieces together the approximate location from various clues, and interviews several people, including the murderer who takes this opportunity to try to kill her. She is rescued, at nearly the last minute, by an old friend who is soon to be her husband. In both of the two major plot categories, the female main character often finds herself in a tremendously dangerous situation from which she is eventually rescued, invariably by a man. In fact this exact scenario occurs in 38X of the novels featuring a female main character.2 In some of these stories, the heroine has to be rescued because, although she has successfully solved the mystery, she has failed to make any sort of contingency plans for her own safety. Margaret MacLean who interviews the killer and then is taken hostage in Id D Slass Dapk}y is one good example. Another example can be found in The Evil of Time, a 1955 mystery by Evelyn Eerckman. In this story, the heroine, Keith Elgin, is searching for hidden art treasures in a crumbling German mansion. She finally unravels the mystery and finds the treasures, but unwittingly she has allowed herself to be followed by a member of a Neo-Nazi group who hopes to use
the treasures to finance a new military campaign. He slits Keith’s wrists intending to leave her to bleed to death, but 178
she is rescued by an firaerican army colonel who was also observing her at her work. In many of the mysteries featuring a female main
character the mystery is solved only after it has run its entire course. No one really solves these mysteries in the sense of discovering the killer at sorae point before the
identity of the killer is revealed by the turn of events. When women characters have to be rescued in these stories it is not because they have intentionally intervened in the
situation, but rather because they have inadvertently gotten in the way. For example, in Joan Aiken’s 1965 mystery The Fortune Hunters. Annette Sheldon never suspects that her new
fiance is a murderer who is marrying her solely for her money. Annette wanders through most of the story in a daze partly brought on by her recent bout with pneumonia, and
partially attributable to the hynoptic powers of her new fiance, and even wonders if she herself might have murdered the woman whose body is discovered in Annette’s garden. She only realizes that the true killer is her own fiance when she overhears him trying to kill her neighbor, who is his never-acknowledged, demented daughter. The fiance, upon realizing that Annette is now wise to his unseemly ways, traps her and the demented daughter, along with his first wife, in a burning building, where they are rescued, in the nick of time, by a male friend of Annette's who suspected that the fiance was up to no good. 179
Another example of a mystery in which the female main character never figures out who the real Killer is until he actually tries to Kill her is Raven's Forge, a 1975 mystery by Jennie Melville. In this story, the heroine, Gilda Reynolds, suspects that John Charlton, the owner of the estate at which she and her mother are staying, is involved
in some sort of nefarious business dealings that have caused the deaths of at least two men. Gilda's suspicions about
John never waver until she is actually shot at, point blanK, by another man who turns out to be not only the Killer, but the shady businessman as well. John, of course, is the one who saves Gilda when the Killer taKes aim.3
Motives. Victims. and Choice of Weapons
LiKe the plot in the mystery, the motives leading to murder in the mystery also tend to differ by character sex. There are six murder motives that apppear regularly in mystery novels: murder for profit, or the money motive; murder for love; murder for hate; murder in anger; murder to end blacKmail; and murder to protect an earlier crime.
These six motives can be grouped into two basic types: instrumental and expressive murders.
Instrumental murders, which would include murders for profit, murders for blacKmail, and murders to protect an earlier crime, are object-oriented. The murderer murders to achieve a goal. In an expressive murder, on the other hand, the murderer murders to satisfy an emotion. Expressive 180
murders, which would include murders for love, murders for hate, and murders in anger, are sometimes referred to as crimes of passion, although this doesn't mean that they are never premeditated. Ninety-two percent of all of the murders in the sample mysteries fall into one of the six motives that make up the
instrumental and expressive types. Most of the murders in the remaining 8% can be classified as psychopathologically-motivated, and include sex slayings and murders committed by the certifiably insane for reasons not understood.
Men characters are much more likely to murder for an instrumental motive than for an expressive motive. Seventy-one percent of all the murders committed by male murderers were of the instrumental type. Eighteen percent were for expressive motives, and the remaining 11% were murders that did not fit into either group. Women characters, on the other hand, are far more likely to murder for an expressive motive than for an instrumental reason. Seventy-three percent of all the murders committed by women characters were of an expressive type, and 27% were for instrumental reasons. These statistics do not change much for either sex over the three sample time periods. Instrumental Murders
The findings show that men are most likely to murder for money (53% of all the murders by males), whereas women are 101 most likely to murder for love (44% of all the murders by females). The Black Tower, a 1975 mystery by P. D. James, features several good examples of money motive murders. In this story, the hero, Adam Dalgliesh, visits an old friend at a home for the young chronically ill, but arrives just after his friend has died. Several more deaths occur, and eventually Adam discovers that the murderer is Julius Court, a healthy, young man who lives in one of the private cottages formerly owned by the home. Court, along with a male nurse he has recruited, uses the home's twice yearly pilgrimages to Lourdes as opportunities to smuggle heroin into England in the hollow metal tubing of the patients' wheelchairs. Four murders occur in the story, all of them committed by Court, sometimes with the nurse's help, and all motivated by Court's desire to retain his drug smuggling enterprise. The money motive in this story is clearly enunciated by Court himself who tells Adam: "I can't be poor again. I need money as I need oxygen. Not just enough, more than enough. Much more” (p. 267). Only 8% of the murders by women characters are for profit. In the 1965 novel The Midnight Man, by Henry Kane,
Alice Sheldon murders millionaire George Preston by secretly bombarding his bedroom with massive doses of radiation so that she can inherit his fortune upon his demise. Alice's sister, Gladys, is married to George, but Gladys is terminally ill so Alice knows that Gladys's tenure as a 182 widow will be a short one, after which Alice will be a wealthy woman, thanks to her proficiency with an x-ray machine. George dies of acute leukemia, but Alice doesn't inherit because the story's hero. Inspector McGregor, is able to piece together her plan. Although Alice's crime is as base as Julius Court's crimes in The Black Tower (and maybe even baser, since Alice's plan counts on her own sister dying), the reader learns that Alice, unlike Julius, is not entirely to blame for her actions. Julius kills for greed; Alice kills for greed too, but her greed is at least partly caused by unrequited love. As Gladys, her sister, tells McGregor early in the story: Alice is beautiful. It's a year now he's been using her, Alice; never a word about marriage; she used to be good, sweet; now she's a bitter, angry woman. The man's a widower; Diane is his only child; Alice would make him a perfect wife; but not Dr. Robert Jackson....She used to be as sweet as she's beautiful but life hasn't been too kind to her. She's hardened (pp. 44-45) .
This is not to say that all women murderers who murder for money do so in response to love scorned. Marie Chardon, in the 1965 mystery A Woven Web, by Pierre Audemars, spends a good portion of her time crashing a large truck into
English tourist cars so that she can relieve the dead occupants of their money and valuables, simply because she
"loved fine clothes and jewelry" and "sometimes lost more than she could afford" in gambling (p.182). But, Marie 183
Chardon and Alice Sheldon are exceptions to the rule. Most women murderers murder for reasons other than money. Women and men characters are about equally liKely to murder to end blackmail. Five percent of the women murderers murder to end blackmail as compared to 6« of the men murderers. Val Gregory, a woman character in Frederick
Davis’s 1955 novel The Frazier Requital. murders Rhoda Sherrill, who was blackmailing Val about a suspicious "accident” that had occurred four years earlier to a woman who had been planning on marrying Val's former boyfriend. Women who murder blackmailers are more likely to kill to protect a loved one, than men who murder blackmailers. For example, Ellen Landers, a character in Judson Philip's 1965 novel The Twisted People, murders two blackmailers who were threatening to expose her boyfriend, Howard, a research scientist at a defense plant, as a security leak. Ellen solves the problem with a shotgun, but doesn't realize that her murderous solution has been observed by her boyfriend's father, who also happens to be the owner of the defense plant. He is enraged by both her actions and the fact that his own son is part of the security leak threatening his plant, and he ends up beating Ellen to death. Later he recounts that she murdered the blackmailers to protect Howard: "...she pleaded and begged, and told me she loved
Howard and had murdered those two bastards to keep him from being exposed and hurt" (p.209). 184
Men characters who murder blackmailers usually do so for more selfish reasons. For example, Barney Amhurst, a character in Richard Deming’s 1955 mystery Whistle Past the Graveyard. murders two blackmailers who threatened to expose his earlier murder of Lloyd Strong, an inventor whose most successful invention was stolen by Amhurst.
Similary, Art Furby, a character in Call After Midnight, a 1965 mystery by Mignon G. Eberhart, murders Blanche Fair when she tries to blackmail him into murdering Jenny
Vleedam, the heroine of the story, using Art's earlier murder of Fiona Vleedam as her lever. The murder of Fiona Vleedam is another interesting example of the difference in motives between men and women characters in mystery novels. While Art is actually the character who pulls the trigger to kill Fiona, Blanche is the character who gets Art to do it.
Blanche is having an affair with her boss, who happens to be Fiona's husband, the wealthy Peter Vleedam. Peter asks Fiona for a divorce so that he can marry Blanche. Fiona refuses, and Blanche decides to kill her. She gets Art Furby, another employee of Peter's, to do her dirty work for her by promising him that once she is Peter's wife she will prevail upon Peter to promote Art to a higher position in the firm. Art agrees and murders Fiona, but before Blanche has a chance to enjoy the fruits of Art's labor, Peter starts to get re-involved with his first wife, Jenny Vleedam. Blanche then tries to blackmail Art into murdering 185
Jenny by threatening to expose him as Fiona's murderer. Art gives some thought to Killing Jenny, and even makes a few half-hearted stabs at this task, but eventually he changes his mind and decides to kill Blanche instead.
Men and women characters are also about equally likely to kill in order to protect themselves from an earlier crime.
Twelve percent of the men murderers and 14% of the women murderers can be assigned to this motive type. The victims
in these murders are almost always innocent bystanders who, unfortunately for them, know just a little bit too much. For example, in the 1975 mystery The Scarlet Ruse, by John MacDonald, Mary Alice McDermit concocts an elaborate
scheme to defraud her employer, a dealer in rare stamps. Jane Lawson, another employee in the stamp shop, discovers how the fraud was engineered and confronts Mary Alice who rewards Jane’s ingenuity by killing her.
A murder for protection also occurs in the 1965 novel. Is Skin-Deep. Is Fatal. by H. R. F. Keating. In this story, a woman running a shady nightclub kills herself but not before she writes a letter in which she accuses a local policeman of blackmailing her for years. She mails this letter to a fellow nightclub owner, but before he can expose the crooked police officer the nightclub owner is found dead with a letter opener buried deep in his back. Eventually another police officer discovers that the murderer is Constable Peter Lassington, the blackmailing cop. who tried to cover 186 his criminal activities by killing the second nightclub owner. Expressive Murders
While women and men characters are about equally as likely to kill to end blackmail or to protect themselves from an earlier crime, there is a large difference in the percentage of men and women characters who kill for love. Forty-four percent of the women murderers murder for love, whereas less than one percent of the men murderers kill for reasons of the heart. Sometimes women characters murder to win love. For example, in the 1955 novel Tour de Force, by Christianna
Brand, Vanda Lane and Louvaine Barker are two look-a-like cousins who are on a charter tour of a vacation island. They both fall in love with Leo Rodd, another tour member.
Leo, however, only loves Louvaine. He and Louvaine make plans to run off together, plans that Vanda overhears. Vanda then murders Louvaine, and assumes her identity so that she can be the one Leo loves. Other women characters murder not to win love, but to hold onto love. For example, in the 1965 novel At Bertram*s
Hotel, by Agatha Christie, 17-year-old Elvira Blake murders a man to protect her inheritance. Elvira stands to inherit a substantial fortune from her father’s estate when she comes of age. She overhears her mother talking to a doorman at Bertram’s Hotel and realizes that her mother married this 187 doorman as a teenager and never divorced him, even though she later married again, and this other husband fathered Elvira. Elvira, fearing that if the doorman reveals this early marriage, then her own birth would be illegitimate, and her rights to her father's fortune in question, shoots him dead. But, although this looks like a murder strictly for money, it turns out that Elvira's need for a fortune hinges not on greed, but on love. She is madly in love with a young race-car driver, a man whom Elvira knows would probably not reciprocate this love if he didn't believe that she was soon to come into big money. As the mystery's Chief
Inspector explains when asked why Elvira needed her inheritance so badly: Chief Inspector Davy said grimly, "To buy Ladislaus Malinowski. He would have married her for her money. He wouldn't have married her without it. She wasn't a fool, that girl. She knew that. But she wanted him on any terms. She was desperately in love with him" (p. 270)•
Women characters also murder to protect a loved one. For example in the 1965 mystery The Only Good Secretary. by Jean Potts, Beulah Hannaford murders her roommate. Fern Villard, to keep Fern from exposing Beulah's son as the thief who had robbed their own apartment several months earlier. In the 1955 mystery Death and Mr. Potter, by Rae Foley, Patricia Wagstaff murders three people to protect her fiance, an up-and-coming, anti-gambling politician whose career would be ruined if news of his campaign's heavy dependence on 188
funds from a well-known gambler was made public. Pat first kills a man who tried to blackmail her fiance; then she kills a woman who may have overheard the blackmailer's
threats; and, finally, she kills still another woman who may have gotten wind of the shady goings-on. Sometimes women characters murder not to protect a love nor to win a love, but just for love itself. For example, in the 1965 mystery The Bank with the Bamboo Door, by D. B. Olsen, Janie Ferrie kills Tod Bonnay to set her husband
free. Janie believes that she is terminally ill. She discovers that Tod is blackmailing her husband, Ronnie, over
his illicit relationship with a young woman named Betsey.
In what she sees as an act of selfless love, Janie murders Tod so that her husband and Betsey can be together after Janie's gone. As the story explains, Janie then writes a note confessing her crime and tries to explain her actions to her husband: "Ronnie had to be made to understand why she'd done it, that it was all because of him, her love, and
her wanting him to be happy with the girl" (pp. 186-87). Of course not every woman character is as self-sacrificing as Janie Ferrie. In fact, 16% of the women
characters who murder in mysteries murder in anger, and most of the time this anger results from the actions of a loved one. For example, in the 1975 novel Wild Turkey# by Roger
L. Simon, Nancy Hecht murders her husband Jock's mistress, a famous anchor-woman named Deborah Frank, in a fury when her 189 husband casually tries to coax Nancy into a three-way sexual encounter with Deborah and himself. As Nancy explains afterwards to Moses Wine, the story's detective, on the night of the murder Nancy came across a gloating Deborah Frank alone in Jock's hotel room. Deborah took that opportunity to tell Nancy that Jock wanted a divorce. Then Jock arrived and within a few minutes Deborah was dead. As
Nancy sobbingly explains: "He...he just came in and kissed me hello as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Then he hugged and kissed Deborah in front of me, sticking his hand in the back of her skirt and clutching her to him. I didn't know how to react. I pulled him away, demanding an explanation, but he wouldn't give me any. He took us both by the hand instead and led us over to the bed. I didn't want to go, but he kept tugging at me till I broke free. I backed across the room, upset, shouting at him that he had broken the contract. But he and Deborah just smiled. They told me to stop being so hung-up, so possessive, to relax and liberate my body. Then they stood and came toward me again, smiling, hugging and caressing me, trying to take my clothes off. They started to undress, fondling each other in front of the mirror. Licking each other's lips. Touching each other's genitals. Jock reached for me, but I wouldn't go...I couldn't stand it...I...I started throwing things, picking up silverware and glasses, yelling and screaming. But they weren't listening to me anymore...lost in each other's excitement...lost...touching...holding... It was horrible. 'No!' I shouted. But they couldn't hear me. They...they...I didn't...! screamed and ran to the table, picked up the knife...I didn't know what I was doing...didn't know...1...1..." (pp. 15a-55).
In another 1975 novel. The Baby Merchants by Lillian O'Donnell, a woman murders a man whom she had once loved and planned to mary. In this story, Mariarosa Martinelli 190 discovers that her fiance from 16 years past, whom she thought was long dead, never died. The fiance had arranged another man’s death to look like his own in order to escape a massive police hunt after he killed a police officer. He left no letter for his fiancee who assumed, like the police, that he was dead. Sixteen years pass and, out of the blue,
he shows up at her apartment, not to see her, though, but to see her lover, a crime boss who had helped the fiance escape many years before. When Mariarosa realizes that the fiance
did not come back for her she kills him in cold blood. As she later relays. Yes, I killed Carlo and I’m not sorry. I don't have one twinge of regret. If I could wish him back to life, I wouldn’t. If he were standing here in front of rae now, I'd do it again.... Do you know why I killed him? Do you know what Carlo Drasso did to me? He sold me to Nerone. Yes. Sven so, in spite of what Carlo had done, I would have forgiven him. That night when he walked into my bedroom...the miracle of discovering that he was alive...the joy of it. I got out of bed. I threw myself on him. I wept. I covered his face with kisses...He pushed me away and pulled the gun. I was still besotted enough to think that Carlo had come back because of me. I still believed that he had come, gun in hand, to claim me. Then they started to argue, he and Giorgio, but not over rae. Carlo accused Giorgio of fingering him to the French police. Giorgio denied it. By then I’d come out of the clouds. I knew that Carlo had no feeling for me anymore, that I was less than nothing to him, and I was frightened. For the moment he’d forgotten me, but afterward, after he killed Giorgio, he'd remember and what would he do? I stood there in my nightgown, and neither of them so much as looked at me. So I edged over to the night table where Giorgio kept a gun. I got it. Giorgio noticed. Then Giorgio opened his mouth; I suppose it was to tell me to go ahead, but before the words came 191
out. Carlo killed him. He fired one shot, straight to the heart. Then without a single word to me, he started for the door. So then I fired and I kept firing till he fell.
Men characters also murder in anger. Ten percent of the male murderers in this sample murdered in a rage. For example, in the 1955 novel Miscast for Murder, by Ruth Fenisong, James Haskell mistakenly identifies Selene Rolfe as his wife Lisa, and murders Selene with his bare hands when he finds her in the hotel room of another man. In the 1965 novel The Murder of Mary Steers. by Brian Cooper, Christopher Weatherby kills Mary Steers immediately after he discovers that the baby she is carrying, which she claimed was his, was actually fathered by his own father. Eight percent of the male character murderers, and 13% of the female character murderers murder in hate. These are usually premeditated murders fueled not so much by quick anger or blind rage, as by a long, smoldering hate. For example, in the 1975 mystery Too Late for Tears, by Harry
Carmichael, Alex Daltry murders his colleague, Gregory Whittle, exactly two years to the day that Alex's own wife committed suicide after a disastrous extramarital affair with Whittle. In another 1975 mystery. The Matter of Paradise, by Brown Meggs, Simon Prinz begins to systematically murder the eight other men who had made up his graduating class at the Mather Academy twenty years earlier. Four of his fellow classmates 192 are Killed and another one wounded, before he is stopped.
Prinz's motive was to avenge the mysterious death of his former lover, who had been a teacher at the academy bacK when Prinz's class was in its senior year. Prinz and the teacher had been involved in a homosexual relationship at that time, but the teacher suddenly died, and rumors that the teacher had been Killed, supposedly by another senior class member, quicKly spread. Twenty years later Prinz believes himself to be the least successful member of his graduating class, and, envious of the others' success, he decides the time is ripe to punish them for the murder of
Norman Paradise, the long-dead lover. Hate fueled by jealousy is a motive sometimes attributed
to women characters as well. In the 1965 mystery The Jealous One, by Celia Fremlin, Rosamund Fielding only
narrowly escapes death when she is pushed off of a moving train by a woman who was jealous of Rosamund's relationship with her husband. In a 1975 novel. Blood Relatives, by Ed
McBain, Muriel StarK brutally murders her cousin Patricia, purely out of jealously over Patricia's budding relationship with Muriel's own brother. Murders based on a hate motive often reveal how thin the line actually is between love and hate, or how quicKly passion can change to an ugly form. The ancient proverb
"Hell hath no fury liKe a woman scorned" is a commonplace mystery theme. For example, in the 1965 Rex Stout novel The 193
Doorbell Ran<3, Nero Wolfe solves the murder of a man who is
Killed by his mistress when she learns that he plans to marry another woman.
In another 1965 novel. The Lonely Breeze by Van Siller, Betty Willard Kills two men, both of whom had had a relationship with Betty, but had also made a pass at the lovely KatrinKa Medford, a big mistaKe on their part. This mystery is solved in a time-honored fashion by KatrinKa's secretary who gathers all of the principal characters together in one room. The secretary suspects that Betty is the murderer, and Betty, who seems to be just on the verge of sanity, readily admits her guilt:
Betty's glare went from me to KatrinKa and that naKed hatred was bacK. "Doug was mine," she yelled. "He was crazy about me. He did follow me down here. I was going to marry him, until he met that bitch...She'11 never have Doug or Tony, will she? She'll never have any man who has made love to me. They're dead" (p. 183).
(Interestingly enough, although the secretary does a fine job of sleuthing out the murderer in this story, and even uses some of the traditional detecting techniques, she still needs the assistance of a man in the end, when Betty, the murderer tries to brain her with an ashtray: "She scooped up a heavy white marble ashtray and before anyone could stop her she was holding it over my head ready to let me have it. Richard came to then and jumped up. He warded off the blow just in time" (p. 185). 194
Betty Willard Kills three characters in The Lonely Breeze, Doug and Tony, her two boyfriends, and also another man, whom she thinKs may have observed her with one of the dead boyfriends immediately prior to his untimely demise. Although Betty's victims are all males, the findings show that women characters are only a little more likely to kill males than females. About 56% of the victims of female murderers in the sample are male, and the remaining 44% are female. Male characters are also a little more likely to
kill other male characters than female characters, but the difference is fairly small; about 53% of the victims of male murderers are male, and about 47% are female. The distribution of motives by murderer's sex that was discussed earlier does not change much when the victim's sex is considered. Whether men characters are murdering males or
females, the most frequent motive is still money. Similarly, women murderers most frequently murder for love, and this motive does not change by the sex of the victim.
Both women and men murderers favor shooting their victims to death over other techniques of termination. Forty-three percent of both the men murderers and the women murderers in this sample use a gun to get the job done. The second favored method for women murderers is the knife, or some facsimile of a sharp, pointed instrument, such as a pair of
scizzors. Twenty-two percent of the women murderers stab their victims to death. Male murderers are more likely to 195 strangle than to stab; 11% of the male murderers strangle their victims, while 11% stab them. As one might expect, strangling is not a popular method of murder for women characters. Only 4% of the women characters strangle their victims. Men characters are also more likely to beat their victims to death than women characters. Four percent of the male murderers beat their victims with their bare hands, as compared to 1% of the women murderers. Women characters are more likely to employ poisons or
drug overdoses than men characters. Ten percent of the female murderers poison or drug their victims, as compared to only 4% of the male murderers. About an equal percentage
of the two sexes use a blunt instrument to kill their victims—7% of the men murderers vs. 9% of the women murderers. Women and men are also about equally likely to
suffocate their victims (1% and 2% of the murderers, respectively), and to push someone to their death (3% of the murderers of both sexes). Lastly, about an equal percentage
of both sexes—8% of the male murderers and 7% of the female murderers—use some other type of murder method or weaponry, for example, techniques such as brake tampering, car
crashing, or hanging.
Friends and Rivals Women characters rarely have women friends in this sample of mystery novels. The findings show that women characters
are much more frequently set up as rivals, rather than 196 friends, and the rivalry is almost always for the affection of a man. In fact, at least one female rivalry exists among major and secondary characters in 26% of the sample novels.
This figure is consistent throughout the three time periods. These rivalries are often portrayed as a ''natural" state of affairs among women. For example in the 1955 novel
Whistle Past the Graveyard, by Richard Deming, the hero, who's also the story's narrator, is dating an extremely attractive woman and at several points in the story he notes, just in passing, that other women are almost always
jealous of her beauty: Ry now I should be used to the attention Fausta Moreni draws in public, for I have squired her across enough night-club floors amid the drooling of every male customer and the glares of every female (p. 3, emphasis added).
Yet, even though Fausta is portrayed as one of the most beautiful women anywhere, anytime, she too engages in this
"natural" female rivalry: Fausta studied Evelyn Karnes a little more thoughtfully, but since the lacquered brunette had not once glanced at me since we were introduced, or at anyone else other than Walter Ford for that matter, apparently Fausta decided she would not be active competition either (p.ll).
In another 1955 novel. The Sinister Strangers. by
Clarence Budington Kelland, two women campers who barely know each other, and have practically no contact whatsoever
in the story, become bitter personal enemies over a young
man neither of them even knew only a few days before. At 197
the end of the story, Katrina, who is one of the two female rivals, and her father and his associates take a group of campers hostage, including the young man and the other female rival, Joan. Only two lines of dialogue pass between the two women, but apparently this is enough: "You, I hate," Katrina hisses to Joan. "Of Course," Joan responds
(p.233) . Bitter rivalries between women are not confined only to the 1955 novels. Twenty-three percent of the mysteries
sampled in 1965 have a female rivalry in the story. Sometimes the female rivalry is the story. For example, in the mystery Though I Know She Lies, by Sara Hoods, a
beautiful woman is accused of poisoning her sister. The beautiful woman proclaims her innocence, but the evidence against her is substantial and her conviction seems
inevitable. Her lawyers search frantically for another suspect, and it is only at the last minute that one of the lawyers realizes that the sister was not murdered at all,
but rather committed suicide and purposely did so in a way that made her death look like murder so that her own sister, of whom she had always been jealous, would be arrested and
punished. Two other 1965 novels. The Jealous One, by Celia Freralin, and The Lonely Breeze, by Van Siller, both of which were
discussed earlier, also center on an extremely bitter rivalry between two women. In The Jealous One, one of the 198 two women rivals tries to Kill the other woman, and in The Lonely Breeze. a woman Kills two of her boyfriends after they show interest in her female rival. Wild Turkey, by Roger L. Simon, and Blood Relatives. by Ed McDain, are two 1975 novels, both of which were also mentioned earlier, in which the murder that is the focus of the story arises out of a female rivalry. In Wild TurKey, a wife murders her husband's mistress, and in Blood Relatives, a cousin murders a cousin to end the latter cousin's relationship with the former cousin's brother. In another 1975 novel. Slowly the Poison by June Drummond, a sister tries to kill her brother to punish him for his attention and generosity towards another woman. Sometimes the female rivalry is merely a subplot in the story. In The Pimlico Plot. a 1975 novel by Mary McMullen,
the mystery in the story is a Kidnapping, but the heroine also has to contend with the relationship between her newly-acquired husband and his former mistress. Similarly,
in the 1955 novel The Dayidian Report. by Dorothy B. Hughes, the central story focuses on secret agent Steve Wintress's search for Davidian, an East German defector, but a subplot concerns the rivalry between two female agents, Janni and Feather, a rivalry that Steve uses to trick Janni into leading him to Davidian:
Janni disbelieved but she couldn't deny. She thought she alone knew the way to Davidian yet she couldn't be sure. Because Steve knew her so well, he could be amused by the act she began to put on. A light raillery against Feather as an opener. 199
followed by a mockery of Steve for being led along the garden path by a simple girl who didn't know enough to open her umbrella in the rain. For the main show, a biting scorn of Steve, who could slump so low from an established reputation as a huntsman to be forced to depend on a stupid animal like Feather. She threw in the implication that it must be Steve's declining powers as a male which could make him interested in such a milk and water specimen as Feather (pp. 161-62).
While women characters in mystery novels rarely have women friends, it is not at all rare for men mystery characters to have men friends. James Bond, in the 1955,
Ian Fleming mystery Casino Royale. works with his friend, the American CIA agent, Felix Leiter. Sammy Golden, a police detective in The Broken poll. a 1955 novel by Jack
Webb, solves a kidnapping mystery with his friend. Father Shanely. Private detective Manny Moon gets help from his friend, police inspector Warren Day, in Richard Deming's
1955 mystery Whistle Past the Graveyard. Attorney Perry Mason works with his friend, private investigator Paul Drake, to solve a murder in The Case of the Nervous
Accomplice. a 1955 mystery by Erie Stanley Gardner. Private investigator Carney Wilde gets tips from his friend. Police
Captain Grodnik, in Bart Spicer's 1955 mystery The Taming of
Carney Wilde. Male friendships abound in 1965 novels as well. Nero Wolfe works with Archie Goodwin in Rex Stout's The Doorbell
Rang. Police Captain Jose Da Silva works with the American diplomat Wilson in Robert L. Fish's The Diamond Bubble. 200
Ludovic Travers works with Bob Harrows in Christopher Bush's The Case of the Grand Alliance. Inspector McGregor, a retired police officer, works with Police Lieutenant Kevin
Cohen in Henry Kane's The Midnight Man. There are also many male friendships in the 1975 sample novels. For example, salvage consultant Travis McGee and his friend, the economist named Meyer, in John D. MacDonald's The Scarlgt Ruse ; crime reporter Quinn and his friend, the insurance assessor, John Piper in Harry Carmichael's Too Late for Teajrg ; private detective Hercule Poirot and his friend Arthur Hastings in Agatha Christie's
Curtain » an(3 Police Inspector Wexford and his friend Howard Fortune in Ruth Rendell's Shake Hands Forever. All of these examples, from each of the three sample periods, are mysteries in which the two male friends work together to solve the mystery in the sample novel, and also work together in other novels as well. In other words, these are all long term friendships.4 And these are only some of the long term male friendships in the sample; there are still others that haven't been mentioned. There are also many spontaneous friendships between men characters in the novels; friendships that spring up during the course of the story. For example, Lincoln Sawtell, the hero in the 1955 mystery The Sinister Strangers, by Clarence Budington
Kelland, quickly befriends a young Arab man he meets at Yosemite National Park; 201
I towered over the young Arab by a full four inches, but there was something about him that made me feel I was no taller than he. In this short meeting, he had attracted me strongly. I could not tell why, but there was something about him that called out to me, and I had a feeling that there was something in myself that called out to him. A rapport, as the psychologists put it (p. 124) .
Horne Browning befriends Martin Newcome and eventually clears him of a murder charge in the 1965 novel Everyone
Suspect. by Nedra Tyre. Another example of a spontaneous male friendship can be found in the 1975 mystery A Big Wind Summer, by Gavin Black. In this story, the hero, Paul
Harris, becomes friends with an art expert named Jeff Fanning-Mackie, and the two of them work together to solve
an art swindle mystery.
Physical Descriptions
There is often a considerable difference in the physical descriptions accorded to men and women characters in mystery novels. Women characters are frequently described much more
elaborately than men characters. For example in the 1955 novel Justin Bayard. by Jon Cleary, Tod Kirkbride is described in less than three lines: "He was a young man,
about twenty-four or five, with a quietly nervous manner and a habit of spitting his words out all at once" (p. 25)• In contrast, the description of Julie Kirkbride, Tod's wife and
a character of only equal importance, spans over three
paragraphs: 202
She leaned close to him as she pushed the pillows in behind him, and her soft breast, prominent under the tight silK dress, pressed against the back of his hand. He looked up at the pale face with its good make-up and the chestnut hair, badly cut but shining and clean as if it had just been washed and brushed, and he wondered how many other stations here in the north-west had two such good-looking women as he had see here in this room in the past minute. "I'm Julie Kirkbride." The chestnut-haired girl sat on the foot of the bed and arranged herself to be looked at; it was obvious she was pleased that it was his ear, and not his eyes that was bandaged. She seemed conscious of her vanity, but was neither ashamed of it nor did she flaunt it. Bayard had met women like her before; they accepted vanity as part of their natural make-up and were always aware of it. She talked with a jerky nervousness, as if she were afraid of her own silences. Now that she was sitting back from him, he noticed that she wasn't as good-looking as he had first thought. She might have been beautiful once, but the rot had set in; it showed behind the carefully applied make-up as behind a frosted glass door. The muscles of her face were slack, and her body too had started to spread under the yellow silk dress. The mascara she wore couldn't disguise the dullness of her eyes, nor the wrinkles that lined the lower lids. Her mouth was meticulously painted, but the lipstick had not eliminated the self-pity that showed when she stopped speaKing. Even as she was, she was better-looking than most women you found here in the outback (pp. 20-21).
Even when the descriptions are approximately equal in length, the focus of the description frequently differs by character sex. Women characters are often described largely in terms of their physical shape, while men characters are almost always described in terms of their facial structures. For example, two short descriptions of a husband and wife in the 1965 novel Gideon's Lot, by J. J. Marric, show a definite difference in focus. Lemaitre, a police officer. 203 and one of the main characters in the story is described as ’’a pale, bony-faced man with slightly prominent eyes, thinning black hair which he brushed sleekly back from a shiny forehead" (p. 2). Lemaitre's wife, a much less important character, is described not in terms of her face, but in terms of her body: "She was very blonde, very small, big-breasted, slim-legged" (p. 41). In another novel, The Bank with the Bamboo Door, a 1965 mystery by D. B. Olsen, this same difference in focus can be seen. For example, one female character in this story is described as follows: She came tripping in at a quarter past twelve, wearing the geranium-pink sweater and the tight brown skirt. Her thighs looked firm, round, shapely inside the brown corduroy and the sweater was so tight across her breasts they didn’t even bounce (p. 53) .
In contrast, a male character in this story is described very differently: His hair was a little darker than Marlie’s. She could see one side of his head from above, the smooth hair brushed back, the line of the jaw, a cigarette held loosely....She had forgotten the focus of his features, the way that the grey eyes, the quizzical mouth, the slant of the temple and cheekbone all led your eye to his deeply indented chin, to the cleft like a knife-cut that made his face a mask both of bedeviled humor and sensuality (p. 62) .
This attention to women characters' bodies, and men characters' faces appears in all three time periods. although in the 1955 novels, descriptions of women's bodies 204
are a little more discreet than in the other two sample years. For example, in the 1955 novel The Content Assignment, by Holly Roth, an exotic dancer is described as
"...a tall blonde with long hair and long bones. Her movements were feline, graceful. She was, as Ed had told me several times on the way over, 'a dish,,, (p. 27). In
another 1955 novel. The Big Money. by Harold Q. Masur, a female character is described as "...attractive in an odd sort of way, small but adequately nourished, and no part of
her called for a re-tooling job" (p. 8). A little more pointed is the description of a woman character in the 1955 mystery Top Assignment. by George Harmon Coxe: "Gladys Flynn
had the proper equipment and in generous proportions, though at the moment all this was snugly encased in a long robe which was clasped at the waist with one hand" (p. 34)•
Yet although the description of Gladys Flynn is a little less discreet than some of the other female descriptions in the 1955 novels, it is still light years away from some of
the descriptions appearing in the 1965 and 1975 mysteries. For example, compare the prior description of Gladys Flynn
to the following description of a woman character in M. E. Chaber's 1965 mystery Wanted; Dead Men: She had large, firm breasts that stood straight out. Her stomach was flat until there was just a slight oval before it reached the loins. Her hair was reddish-blonde and silky. Her hips were just wide enough, with generous curves in the rear, and her legs were long and tapering (p. 104). 205
Women characters are more likely to be elaborately described in terms of their clothing than men characters. For example, in the 1955, Ian Fleming novel Casino Royale.
James Bond works with two other agents: Vesper Lynd and Felix Leiter. The following passages compare the descriptions of these two agents. Both are described mainly in terms of their faces and their clothing, but Felix's clothing is given a rather perfunctory once-over, while Vesper's style of dress is minutely detailed: Felix Leiter was about thirty-five. He was tall with a thin bony frame and his lightweight, tan-coloured suit hung loosely from his shoulders like the clothes of Frank Sinatra. His movements and speech were slow, but one had the feeling that there was plenty of speed and strength in him, and that he would be a tough and cruel fighter. As he sat hunched over the table, he seemed to have some of the jackknife quality of a falcon. There was this impression also in his face, in the sharpness of his chin and cheekbones and the wide wry mouth. His grey eyes had a feline slant which was increased by his habit of screwing them up against the smoke of the Chesterfields which he tapped out of the pack in a chain. The permanent wrinkles which this habit had etched at the corners gave the impression that he smiled more with his eyes than with his mouth. A mop of straw-coloured hair lent his face a boyish look which closer examination contradicted. Her hair was very black, and she wore it cut square and low on the nape of the neck, framing her face to below the clear and beautiful line of her jaw. Although it was heavy and moved with the movements of her head, she did not constantly pat it back into place, but let it alone. Her eyes were wide apart and deep blue, and they gazed candidly back at Bond with a touch of disinterest which, to his annoyance, he found he would like to shatter, roughly. Her skin was lightly sun-tanned and bore no trace of make-up except on her mouth, which was wide and sensual. Her bare arms and hands had a quality of repose, and the general impression of restraint in her appearance and 206
movements was carried even to her fingernails, which were unpainted and cut short. Round her neck she wore a plain gold chain of wide flat links, and on the fourth finger of the right hand a broad topaz ring. Her medium-length dress was of grey sole sauvage with a square-cut bodice, lasciviously tight across her fine breasts. The skirt was closely pleated and flowered down a narrow, but not a thin, waist. She wore a three-inch, hand-stitched black belt. A hand-stitched black sabretache rested on the chair beside her, together with a wide cartwheel hat of gold straw, its crown encircled by a thin black velvet ribbon which tied at the back in a short bow. Her shoes were square-toed of plain black leather.
Women’s clothes are also frequently used to describe a woman’s shape. For example, the following description of the dress on a rather minor female character in Shake Hands
Forever, a 1975 mystery by Ruth Rendell, clearly focuses on the body beneath the dress:
Her dress was just what, in Wexford's opinion, a woman's dress should be, full in the skirt, tight in the waist, of mauve and blue printed cotton, its low neck showing an inch or two of the upper slopes of a full golden bosom (p. 25).
While the descriptions of women's clothing are often used to describe their figures, when a man's apparel is elaborately described it is almost always a means of showing the male character's financial or social stature. For example, the following passages from Henry Kane's 1965 mystery. The Midnight Man. describe the clothing on two characters, one male and one female: She was very tall, very blonde, very shapely, very knowing, fortyish, stylish, and most attractive. She was wearing a green, off-one-shoulder evening gown of a color that precisely matched the color 207
of her eyes; a gown that was full at the full bosom and pinched in at the narrow waist and then full again and graceful over full and graceful hips (p. 70) . Dr. Robert Jackson had a square, tight-skinned, ruddy face. He had powerful hands, a barrel chest, thick shoulders. His hair was iron-grey, his bushy eyebrows were black, and his piercing black eyes were small, deepset, and nervously quick-moving. He was a sturdy, strong-looKing, good-looking man. He was well-dressed, conservatively dressed, except for his tie. He wore chocolate-brown grained shoes, chocolate woolly socks, a custom-tailored chocolate-brown double-breasted suit, and a pale tan shirt with a gold pin holding the collar together beneath the knot of the tie. The tie was a regimental, striped crimson and gold. He had a deep voice; his enunciation was clipped and commanding (p. 86) .
A similar example can be found in No Place for Murder, a
1975 mystery by George Harmon Coxe: The pale-blue knit slacks fit snugly but not indecently and proved that her legs were straight, perhaps a touch thick in the thigh but not flabby. Her waist was flat in the front and the hips and bottom shapely and well-proportioned. The white jersey turtleneck was sufficiently revealing to suggest breasts that were not only adequate but firmly formed (p. 132). He had a trim, compact body, not big—perhaps five-ten and a hundred and sixty pounds—but fit-looking. His hair was black and straight and cut short, yet long enough to part. His eyes, like his hair, were dark and intelligent and Fenner had never seen him, at least in the office looking anything but immaculate, his well-tailored suits invariably either blue or some acceptable shade of grey; always a white shirt, his neckties either plain-colored or conservatively striped (p. 65) .
In both of these sets of passages the women’s clothing is described in terms that focus on the body beneath the 208 clothing, while the men's clothing is described in terms that connote financial success.
Love Among, the Bodies Women main characters in mystery novels are far more likely than men main characters to find a serious love interest in the course of the story. In fact, women main characters are more than twice as likely as men main characters to fall in love in mystery novels.5 Forty-eight percent of the women main characters fall in love during the course of the story, as compared to 21% of the men main characters. This difference in percentages is significant at the .001 level. Love tends to strike quickly in the mystery story for both men and women characters. Most mystery novels span a relatively short period of time, usually not more than a week or two, and consequently the course of true love has to run rapid if its going to run at all. For example, Bess Rohan, the heroine in Ruth Fenisong's 1955 mystery. Miscast 121 Murder. falls deeply in love with Link Basset only a few days after their first meeting. "It's impossible,” she protests. "People don't fall in love this way” (p. 191). But Bess is wrong on both counts. She is in love, and ends the story planning a future with Link, and people do fall in love this way on a fairly regular basis in mystery novels. The Taming of Carney Wilde, a 1955 mystery by Bart
Spicer, supplies another example of the quickened course of 209
love in mystery novels. In this story, private investigator Carney Wilde is seriously wounded in a shootout, following a robbery at a bank that is under his security agency's
contract. Recuperating in the hospital, he learns that his girlfriend has married another man. On the day that he
plans to leave the hospital, he receives a tip that the bank robber had bought a ticket for a riverboat cruise. Wilde books a passage for himself on the same cruise. Tne robber, of course, is not on the cruise, but on his first day aboard ship, Wilde meets Ellen Pomeroy, and his old girlfriend is quickly forgotten. By the time the ship docks, the robbery gunman is dead, the bank's money has
been recovered, and Wilde and Ellen are planning to be married. Fast romances bloom in the 1965 and 1975 novels as well.
For example, in The Fortune Hunters. a 1965 mystery by Joan Aiken, Annette Sheldon, the heroine is engaged to be married to a man who turns out to be the murderer in the story. He tries to kill Annette, and she is rescued by Noel Hanaker. The story has only a few pages left after the murderer is exposed but by the time the last page is reached, Annette and Noel are planning a cruise together. In another 1965 novel. The File on Devlin. by Catherine Gaskin, the main character is Josh Canfield, a newspaper writer and intelligence agent who accepts an assignment to investigate the death of Lawrence Devlin, a famous and 210 important author. Josh's investigation brings him into contact with the author's lovely daughter, Sarah, who is in the midst of planning her wedding to a wealthy financier.
By the time the mystery is resolved, the wedding is off and
Josh and Sarah are planning a life together. Thro£ Layers of Guilt, a 1975 mystery by Jeffrey Ashford, is a story in which the hero is set up to be framed for three arson murders by a woman he falls in love with at the beginning of the story. Although she is supposed to be wording for the mastermind behind the crime, she finds herself falling in love with the hero, a contingency for which the mastermind hasn't prepared, and, consequently, the ultimate cause of his downfall in the end. While women mystery characters are much more likely to fall in love than men mystery characters, women mystery authors are only slightly more likely to include a love interest in their stories than men mystery authors. Twenty-six percent of the women mystery authors and 22S of the men mystery authors wrote mysteries in which the main character falls in love during the course of the story. An interesting difference in author's sex does occur, however, when the ultimate disposition of the romance is considered. While all of the stories written by women authors end with the loving couple seemingly prepared to live happily ever after, 21% of the stories written by men authors end with one of the lovers dead. 211
For example, in the 1955, Ian Fleming novel Casino Royale, James Bond falls in love with secret agent Vesper Lynd and plans to ask her to marry him. They go off together on a vacation when their assignment is completed, but Vesper seems to be desperately unhappy. She refuses to tell Bond why she is so miserable, and eventually she kills herself. Only then does Bond discover that the woman he had planned to marry was actually a double-agent. In another mystery. Palomino Blonde, a 1975 novel by Ted
Allbeury, the male lover is the one who ends up dead. In this story, James Hallet, a brilliant research scientist working in Great Britain, discovers a principle that could make all known military weaponry obsolete. Hallet is reluctant to give his discovery to any government, but unfortunately his own secret testing of this principle leads to awareness of the nature of his work in certain intelligence circles. The American government assigns a beautiful female agent to the Hallet case, and the two of them fall deeply in love. Hallet begins to plan for’their future together, but the woman is kidnapped by Russian agents who demand his principle for her return. But British and American agents are watching Hallet’s every move. In desperation, he tries to rescue his girlfriend by working secretly with the Russians, but the British agents intervene, and Hallet is finally killed by the Russians, who have decided that if they can't have his principle, then 212
nobody will. Mallet's girlfriend, the American agent, is rescued, but it's too late; Hallet is already dead. At the story’s end, the girlfriend discovers that she is pregnant by her dead lover, and she decides to raise the baby by herself. Finally, in the 1975 novel. Wild TurKey, by Roger L. Simon, the hero of the story, Moses Wine, falls in love with Nancy Hecht, a murderess who Killed her husband's mistress in a blind rage. Moses and Nancy's romance is very
shortlived, however. At the end of the story, Nancy is Killed by a paid assassin, and Moses discovers that the dead mistress's father had ordered Nancy's contract Killing, and had used Moses's own investigation into this case to maKe the final decision to Kill Nancy Hecht. ENDNOTES
*The female main characters who actually solve the mystery are an interesting group to consider. There are ten such women in the sample, and three of them are old ladies—Miss Jane Marple, Miss Maud Silver, and Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley—who solve even the grisliest of murders in a genteel, ladylike fashion. For example, in the 1965 novel Pageant of Murder, by Gladys Mitchell, Dame Beatrice Bradley solves three murders, including one in which a man’s head is severed with a sword, by arranging a luncheon party with the town women so that she can converse with the main suspect’s aunt. At this dinner she skillfully steers the conversation to the subject of nephews; learns what she needs to know; and afterwards, since this is hardly polite, dinner-time conversation, reveals that the murderer is not the nephew but instead the uncle.
Two more of the female main characters who actually solve the mystery are both half of a husband and wife detecting team. One of these women is Norah Mulcahaney, a police officer who competently solves mysteries with her police officer husband, Joe Capretto, in several 1970s novels. The other woman is Emily Bryce, an interior decorator who solves mysteries on the side with the help of her husband Henry, also a decorator. The Bryces appear in several mystery novels in the 1950s and 60s. Emily is of the ’’women detectives as eccentrics" school. She works largely on hunches, and sometimes behaves in strange ways. At one point in the story, when Emily seems preoccupied during a meal, a friend advises Emily's husband not to call her back to reality: ’’Let her mind wander," Link advised. Henry knew what he meant. During celebrations of this kind Emily frequently had an impulse to try to remove the tablecloth without disturbing the dishes (Glass oq the Stairs, p. 26).
Emily, however, is not the most eccentric female mystery solver. This accolade has to go to the Honorable Constance Morrison-Burke, an English gentlewoman, who solves a tricky murder mystery in the 1975 novel Thg Package Included Murder, by Joyce Porter. The Hon. Con, as she is called by her female traveling companion, is a detective of last
213 214 resort. Everything else she has tried to do she has failed at miserably: The Hon. Con had been born not only into the purple but into considerable wealth as well. It would be naive to claim that these two blessings had ruined her life, though they were certainly far from having enhanced it. The Hon. Con was a positive powerhouse of energy, inventiveness, and intelligence, and if she could have found an outlet for these qualities, she would have been an asset in any society. If she had married, for example, some of the verve and dash might have been soaked up in bossing a husband and kids around. If she had been an impoverished nobody, she would have worked off some of the surplus by carving out a career for herself. But what do you do when you're an unplucked rose and already have an annual income many a county borough council would envy? Not that the Hon. Con took all this lying down. On the contrary, she tackled her problems with such enthusiasm and violence that the pieces hadn't yet been put together. Plunging into voluntary work, the Hon. Con joined all the right societies and wrecked them in days rather than weeks. Looking for a hobby, she became a member of clubs which almost immediately sank without trace and with all hands. Unfortunately, Totterbridge, where she lived, was only a small provincial town, and its resources were limited. In a distressingly short space of time the Hon. Con had gone through the lot, and there was no cultural, educational, recreational, sporting, or charitable organisation which wasn't left licking its wounds. The Hon. Con, on the other hand, hadn't changed at all and was still frantically searching for something worthwhile to do. It was during this quest—and really quite fortuitously—that the Hon. Con had found herself involved, on two separate occasions, in the investigation of a murder. The police hadn' liked what they referred to as the Hon. Con's unwarranted interference, but she didn't let little things like that stand in her way. She had learned in the hard school of personal experience that hardly anybody accepted her cooperation except under duress, and the realisation that it was her vocation in life to be a private detective lent power to her elbow. A neo-Lord Peter Wimsey—that's really how the Hon. Con saw herself (pp. 12-13). 215
But although the Hon. Con does eventually solve the mystery in the story, she is a very strange character indeed. Her face bears a resemblance to a bulldog, she uses Old Spice as cologne, and she wears army surplus pyjamas to bed. She's bossy, officious, and totally insensitive, and her skill at detecting is questioned throughout the story: "It was so obvious that he was trying to hide something that even the Hon. Con noticed it" (p. 73)•
The four remaining female mystery solvers are all ordinary women, who happen to come across, and solve, a mystery that is affecting their family or friends. None of them are in an occupation usually connected to criminal activities. Tessa Crichton Price (Nursery Tea and Poison. 1975) is an actress; Helen Mitchell (Plot Counter-Plot. 1975) is a mystery writer; Hester Callard (March to the Gallows. 1965) is a librarian; and Pat Cunningham (The Lonely Breeze, 1965) is a secretary. 2In only eight of the stories in this sample, or 7% of the stories featuring a male main character, does the male main character have to be rescued in the end. The difference in percentages between male and female main characters who need to be rescued in the end is significant at the .001 level. In only two of the stories is a man rescued by a woman. In many of the other stories, the male main character is in grave danger at the end of the story, but most of the time he manages to save himself. 3 Haven's Forge is also a good example of an enduring mystery style that is actually a hybrid of two formula types: the mystery and the gothic. Thirteen percent of the mysteries with a female main character in this sample are gothic mysteries. These novels are spread evenly throughout the three time periods.
Gothic mysteries usually have all the elements of a regular gothic romance novel. There is the typically cold and intimidating leading man: A spare whiplash of a man with sharp features and deep-set piercing eyes, his manner icy and dictatorial—he was not so much a man, she had always felt, as an inhuman, super-efficient military machine (The Evil of Time, p. 22).
There is the initially strained and awkward relationship between the heroine and the leading man:
He was an attractive, forceful man whom I liKe to look at and rather feared to annoy. The unlucky 216
thing was I did annoy him, and he did the same to me (Raven1s Forge, p. 14)•
There is the "other woman" who is frequently extraordinarily beautiful and usually a great deal less than pleased about the heroine's arrival: Mrs. Dahlia, too, with her dark, beauty and startling figure, seemed so out of place. As if she had been left behind by a gypsy troupe which had once camped on the front lawn. Stella thought a lot about Mrs. Dahlia. Stella was woman enough to envy her striking looks. By comparison, even with her long brown hair and clear complexion, Stella felt hopelessly plain. All in all. Hawk House and its inhabitants were most peculiar, and Stella still felt alien and unwanted (Dagk Cypress. p. 25). There is the traditional dark, gloomy, and forbidding mansion: She began searching the sky for a bird flying, anything to take the curse off the emptiness, and for this reason missed the first sight of Drachensgrab—dense dark boxwood hedges rearing up seven or eight feet. Uhen she came to, they were running over the abrupt thunder of a short bridge that spanned the remains of a moat, and approaching the most sinister medieval gateway she had ever seen in her life. Awful, cruel and menacing, it bulked astoundingly before them.... (The Evil of Time, p« 30) . There is the terrible secret that is usually the mystery of the story. For example, in the 1975 novel The Saffron Summer. by Margaret Summerton, the secret concerns the mysterious drowning death of a young nurse who had been hired by the Delamain family to care for Hermione Delaraain, the aging, but still domineering, matriarch of the family. Eventually the family’s mansion burns down (not an atypical occurrence in gothic novels, by any means) and the truth comes out: Conwyn Delamain, the son of the matriarch, killed the nurse after she rejected his offer of marriage, by pushing her into the mansion's moat.
There is plenty of hate directed at the heroine:
The utter, unrelenting hatred of the woman was like some lightening bolt of malediction, thundering down the staircase, to strike her dead in the doorway (Dark Cypress, p. 129). 217
I could not make rayself belive that she could regard me with such naked, shameless hate, with a coldness that was much more terrifying than anger (The Saffron Summer. p. 164). All the same, she felt the impact of Julie's hostility like an angry hand between the shoulder blades, pushing her out into danger (The Deadly Climate, p. 33). There is the not inconsiderable amount of time which the heroine spends shaking with fear: She was weak with fright at the thought of going out to experiment, alone, in those evil gardens (The Evil of Time, p. 166). Dread and fear turned me into a coward who rushes with blind recklessness toward a fence in order to reach the safety of the other side (The Saffron Summer, p. 163). And last, but not least, at the end of the novel, when the mystery has been resolved and the story is winding to a close, there is the sudden realization on the part of both the heroine and the leading man that what they are feeling is actually love and not hate: "Keith," he muttered, then kissed her violently, bearing her back and down into the pillow. The kiss was astonishingly, stabbingly sweet; in some remote corner of her mind she remembered she had thought him not a man—a mistake whose full extent she was yet to discover. Also there flashed upon her, as of a cipher that had long resisted her, the key—to herself, to her inner disharmony. It was humiliatingly simple after all—fear of love. Inheritance, not illogical, from an unhappy home. You could be in love, she perceived, and hide it from yourself under a number of masks—flight, hostility, even hatred (The Evil of Time, p. 195).
Gothic mysteries, like gothic romances, always have a female main character. Usually this main character is not the person who solves the mystery. In this sample, one third of the gothic heroines solve the mystery in the story, but half of these heroines then have to be rescued when the killer turns against them. In the remaining two-thirds of the gothic mysteries, the mystery either runs its entire course and is solved by the turn of events, or else it is solved by the leading man. 218 *Many of these long term male friendships are based on a bantering type of relationship. While the men friends help each other solve the mystery, they often Kid or tease each other relentlessly throughout the story. For example, in the 1955 mystery Whistle Past the Graveyard, by Richard Deming, private investigator Manny Moon is hired to clear Thomas Henry of a murder charge. Moon visits his friend. Police Inspector Warren Day, and banteringly tries to convince him that Henry is an innocent man:
I like Warren Day and respect his ability as a cop, but if I may make my understatement for the day, his moods are unpredictable. This particular afternoon I found ray scrawny friend in a relatively equable frame of mind. He didn't fawn on me, but neither did he bite off my head for neglecting to knock before I opened his office door. He merely gave me a sour look and said, "I didn't send for you. Moon." "I know," I said. "You probably don't yet realize you need my help. I'm here as one of your oldest and most faithful friends in order to keep you from making a fool of yourself." The inspector watched suspiciously as I sank into a chair and casually reached toward his cigar humidor. Before I could get the lid up, he whisked it to the far corner of his desk. Shrugging, I produced one of my own cigars and lighted up.... "You have a young fellow named Thomas Henry in the pokey down here," I said. "Entered a charge yet?" "Nothing serious," Day said negligently. "Just first-degree homicide." "Recall the red-haired girl you met last night? Madeline Strong?" The inspector's reminiscent expression indicated he vividly recalled all the ladies he had met last night. But he pretended to think before nodding. "It seems she bears a deep and romantic love for your murder suspect," I said, "and believes the police have entered a conspiracy with the real murderer to pin the killing on her Thomas. Naturally I told her that was ridiculous, that the Homicide Department wasn't dishonest. It was gust inept. She hired me to do what I can for the boy." "That's nice," Day said agreeably. "Just offhand the only thing I can think of you can do for him is hold his hand in the gas chamber." 219
"I'm alergic to HCn," I told him. "I'd rather Keep him out of the chamber. What have you got on him?" Another example of this bantering type of male friendship can be found in the 1975, Harry Carmichael mystery Too Late fop Tears. In this story, a newspaper reporter named Quinn and his friend, insurance assessor John Piper, investigate a very suspicious suicide that turns out to be a murder. In this passage, Quinn tries to get Piper to think about the crime as a murder rather than a suicide:
"Can you forget the whole idea of suicide just for a moment and look at it with an open mind?" "All right. If it'll help to get this thing out of your system. I'll try." Quinn said, "The saints be praised. I haven't laboured in vain. Now, supposing we set this out like one of those sums in algebra that we used to do at school. You're given x and y and you have to find z...and don't look so blank. Didn't you ever go to school?" "Oh, yes, but they never taught me how to understand the thought processes of somebody like you," Piper said. This bantering, easygoing type of friendship is rarely found between women mystery characters. However, the lack of female friendships is not confined only to mystery novels. Researchers have noted that female same-sex friendships are rare in much of popular culture (Davidson and Packard, 1981; Weibel, 1977; Wright, 1982). While popular culture often "emphasizes male friendships," female same-sex relationships are presented as competitive and mistrustful (Davidson and Packard, 1981:498). As Paul H. Wright notes,in an article examining the "alleged inferiority" of women's friendships, "the conceptions of women's friendships (in literature) have been grossly underrepresented, and, when represented, have been cast in an unfavorable light" (Wright, 1982:2). Some explanations as to why female friendships are "inferior" to male friendships have been offered. For example, Lionel Tiger has theorized that there is an innate, biological propensity for men to "bond" with other men (Tiger, 1969). Tiger's theory is based on the idea that male bonding is a biologically-based response to the prehistoric need for cooperation in hunting. In other words, this male bonding began back in the hunting period of human evolution. Tiger hypothesized that the women of this period were largely preoccupied with childbirth and child 220 rearing, while the men hunted for their daily sustenance. This hunting, which was absolutely essential to human survival, was done in groups. The male hunters worked cooperatively, and gradually a non-erotic, male-male link or bond developed that enabled the hunters to work more effectively and efficiently during the hunt. Tiger further hypothesized that males who were able to bond had an advantage in survival over males who failed to bond and, consequently, male bonding eventually became genetically programmed into the human male species. Females, according to Tiger, had no reason to bond and, consequently, the genetic propensity to bond is exclusively male. The difference in male and female same-sex friendships, according to this theory, rests on the ability or lack of ability to bond. Men can bond, so their friendships are stronger and more intense; women can't bond, so their friendships are weaker and more superficial. Another theory on the inferiority of women's friendships is that women have traditionally been taught to view all other women as competition in their quest for a mate. As Janet Saltzman Chafetz hypothesizes:
Girls are not encouraged to participate in games that foster cooperation and camaraderie. More importantly, from adolescence females are taught that their major task is to outshine other members of their gender sufficiently to attract and then hold the best possible mate. In centering the female's self-definition around that of the male she will eventually attract and wed, the feminine sex role encourages a kind of constant competition between all members of the sex; the most important aspect of their entire lives rests directly on a never-ending war of all against all (Chafetz, 197«:184).
While Tiger's and Chafetz's theories both offer explanations as to why women's friendships are inferior to men's friendships, the empirical research in this area has not supported the initial contention that women's friendships are inferior to men's friendships. Much of the research has shown that male and female same-sex friendships do differ in certain ways, but it is impossible to assign evaluatory significance to these differences. For example, a study on same-sex friendships by Caldwell and Peplau found that men and women do not differ in the quantitative aspects of friendship, such as number of friends or amount of time spent with friends; nor do they 221
differ in the value they place on intimate friendships. Differences do exist, however, in the nature of interactions with friends. Women friends place more emphasis on emotional sharing and talking, while men friends emphasize shared activities (Caldwell and Peplau, 1982).
This same difference in emphasis has been found in other studies as well. For example, a study by Robert R. Bell on 141 Americans and Australians found that the friendships of women are more personal and emotionally-based than the friendships of men, and that men's friendships are more often characterized by how the men relate to others and how they do things with their friends then the friendships of women (Bell, 1981). Similarly, a study by Paul H. Wright found that women are more likely to emphasize personalism, self-disclosure, and supportiveness in their friendships, while men are more likely to emphasize external interests and mutually involving activities (Wright, 1982) . The evidence from the empirical research, then, indicates that there is a gender difference in the nature of same-sex friendships, but there is no evidence to substantiate any contentions regarding the inferiority of female friendships or the superiority of male friendships. Accordingly, the lack of strong female friendships in mystery novels, in specific, and in popular culture, in general, is not a reflection of reality, but rather is a reflection of an inaccurate, but nevertheless pervasive, sexrole stereotype that reduces all women to rivals in the competition for men. 5The finding that women mystery characters are twice as likely as men mystery characters to fall in love during the course of the story is a reflection on the stereotypical belief that women are generally more romantic than men. This stereotype is widespread in popular culture. As one group of researchers notes, within popular culture,
the most common set of perceptions holds that of the two sexes, women are the more starry-eyed and sentimental, while men are the more hardhearted and rational. A woman, according to this stereotype, is more likely to fall in love at first sight and to experience such symptoms as a heightened pulse, a trembling hand, and an itching in her heart. Meanwhile, the male object of the woman's affection is presumed to remain impassive and even unaware of the strange transformation that she is undergoing (Rubin et al., 1981:822). 222 Interestingly, some recent research has challenged the presumption that women are the more romantic of the two sexes. For example, a study on the love relationship by Robert Morais and Allen Tan found that male subjects had a much more traditional view of the "ideal romantic love relationship" than female subjects (Morais and Tan, 1980 :1222). Another set of studies by Charles Hill, Zick Rubin, and Letitia Anne Peplau found that women were less romantic than men in the sense that women were more cautious about entering romantic relationships; were more sensitive to the existence of problems within their relationships; were more likely to compare their relationships to alternatives; were more likely to end relationships that seemed ill-fated; and were better able to cope with rejection than men (Hill et al., 1976; Rubin et al., 1981). These studies also revealed that men tended to fall in love more quickly and easily than women, and that men rated the desire to fall in love as a more important reason for having entered a relationship than did women. The researchers offer three possible explanations for their findings. The psychoanalytic explanation focuses on the underlying differences between men and women in their capacity for complete heterosexual commitment. This explanation is based on the idea that differences in the Electral and Oedipal complexes lead to differences in male and female capacity for heterosexual commitment. The socio-economic explanation, on the other hand, focuses on the need for women to be more practical and discriminating (and, consequently, less romantic) than men in the marriage marketplace. The third explanation focuses on the socialization process which allows women more emotional freedom than men. This explanation is based on the idea that the greater emotional experiences of women make women more sensitive to the quality of interpersonal relationships and thus allow women to set higher criteria for falling in love or staying in love than men. Chapter VIII SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
8.1 REVIEW OF THE MAJOR FINDINGS The findings from this study show that men and women characters in contemporary American mystery novels are generally portrayed in very different ways. To summarize, the findings indicate that men characters are more numerous and more likely to play major roles than women characters. Men characters are also more likely to be in occupations that are important to the mystery in the story. While 27% of the male characters are private investigators, secret agents, or police officials, only 4% of the female characters are employed in these types of occupations.
Another 28% of the male characters are professionals and executives, but only 5% of the women characters fall into these high status jobs. The majority of the employed women characters in this sample fall into three job categories: traditional female jobs (21% of the working women), pink and blue collar jobs (15%), and artists and entertainers (19%).
A full third of the women characters are in the "No occupation" category, a category that contains only 1% of the men characters.
223 224
Men characters are generally in higher status occupations than women characters and they are also far more likely to have received a college or graduate school education. For
the most part, education is not a widely used variable in mystery novels. Only 17% of the characters in this study are identified as having gone to either college or graduate
school, but this small group of characters is predominantly male. 82% of the characters who went to college and 91% of the characters who went to graduate school are male.
Women characters tend to be younger than men characters. Thirty-six percent of the women characters are under 30 years of age, as compared to only 11% of the men characters.
When the characters are divided into young, middleaged, and old age brackets, twice as many women as men are in the young age group (64% vs. 32%). Men characters are more
likely not to be identified by age than women characters. While about a third of the women characters are not age-identified, the corresponding figure for the men
characters is 54%. Men characters are also much more likely not to be identified in terms of their marital status or their parenting status than women characters. While 31% of the men characters are not identified with respect to their marital status, the corresponding figure for women characters is only 3%. One can hypothesize that women characters are more easily identified in terms of marital 225 status because the difference in the traditional address between a married woman and a single woman is not present
between a married man and a single man. Although this is a
valid point and undoubtedly does account for some of the difference in the percentage of male and female characters in the "Unknown marital status" category, it does not explain why men characters are also much more likely than women characters to be in the unknown category with regard to whether or not they have children. While the parenting status of 51% of the married, divorced, or widowed male characters is not reported, the corresponding figure for the married, divorced, or widowed female characters is only 20%.
Women characters are more likely to be single than men characters, but as was mentioned earlier, part of the difference in the percentage of male and female single characters probably can be attributed to the larger
proportion of younger women characters in the sample. Women and men characters frequently play different roles in the mystery. Women characters are twice as likely as men characters to play a victim role, and men characters are twice as likely as women characters to play the murderer role. Characters of both sexes are about equally likely to be suspects or accomplices, but men characters are far more likely to play a detective role in the mystery. While almost a quarter of the male characters play a major or secondary detective role, only 4% of the women characters 226 fall into this role category, and 75« of these women are secondary rather than primary detectives. Where women characters really outstrip men characters is in the "No role" category. Forty-four percent of the women characters play no role in the mystery, as compared to 29% of the men characters.
Men characters are considerably more aggressive than women characters. While approximately 20% of the men characters engage in aggressive behavior during the story, the corresponding figure for women characters is only around 5%. Men characters are also more likely than women characters to engage in victim behavior—being threatened with a weapon or being physically hurt or attacked. The difference in percentages between men and women characters on victim behavior is not as large as the difference in percentages between the sexes on aggressive behavior. While about 26% of the men characters engage in victim behavior, the corresponding figure for women characters is about 19%.
Still, one might think it odd that men characters demonstrate more victim behavior when the earlier findings show that women characters are twice as likely to be actually victimized than men characters. One explanation for this paradox is that aggressive characters are far more likely to place themselves in situations that call for victim behavior, and men characters are far more likely to display aggressive behavior than women characters. In other 227
words, to use an example, a character who threatens another character with a weapon, or physically hurts or attacks another character is much more likely to eventually be treated to reciprocal behavior than a character who plays a largely passive role in the story. Another explanation for why men characters are higher in
victim behavior than women characters is that major characters are far more likely than secondary characters to engage in both aggressive and victim behavior, and men
characters are more likely than women characters to be major characters in the novels. The findings show that almost three-quarters of all the characters who demonstrate victim
behavior in the sample are major characters. A larger percentage of women characters than men characters engage in sexual relations in the sample. Eleven percent of the women characters and 6% of the men characters engage in voluntary sex, but these percentages are a little deceiving in that they seem to suggest that almost twice as
many women as men engage in sex. In actuality, almost an equal number of men and women characters engage in sexual
relations—5a men and 60 women—but because women only make
up 35" of the sample, the percentage of women engaging in sex is higher than the percentage for men. As was explained earlier, the small discrepancy in partner count is due to
the fact that a few of the men characters sleep with more than one woman in the course of the story. 228
While men characters are more likely to display aggressive and victim behavior than women characters, women characters are more likely to display domestic or emotional
behavior than men characters. Women characters are significantly more likely to cook or prepare food and to dust or clean house than men characters. Women characters
are also more likely to cry during the course of the story. As was already mentioned, the findings show that men
characters are more likely to be major characters in mystery
novels than women characters. Men characters are also more likely to be the main character in the story, the one character upon whom the story generally focuses.
Eighty-three percent of the main characters in this sample are male. This figure partly reflects the overrepresentation of male authors in mystery fiction, and
also refects the willingness of women mystery authors to employ male main characters, a willingness rarely reciprocated by men mystery authors. While 43% of the women
authors in this study employ a male main character, only 2% of the main characters in the mysteries written by men authors are female.
Male main characters are far more likely to actually solve the mystery in the story than female main characters. Over 90% of the men main characters solve the mystery in the end, as compared to only a little over one-fifth of the women main characters. 229 Male characters generally become involved in the mystery through their occupation. In 72« of the mysteries that feature a male main character in this sample, the male character comes across the mystery in the course of his occupation. In these stories, the mystery almost always begins in a professional context, although gradually it may assume a more personal basis. Women characters, in contrast, generally become involved in the mystery on a personal basis right from the start. In 71% of the mysteries with a female main character, the woman becomes involved in the mystery because it concerns a close friend or family member.
Women characters are considerably less likely than men characters to solve the mystery in the story, and they are considerably more likely to need to be rescued at the story’s end. In 38% of the novels featuring a female main character, the heroine finds herself in a tremendously dangerous situation at the end of the story, a situation that she cannot handle herself. A knight on a white charger must come to the rescue, and, like most knights, the rescuer is almost always male. The exact opposite scenario—a male being rescued by a female—very rarely occurs. While in 7% of the novels featuring a male main character the male main character has to be rescued in the end, only twice is the rescuer a woman 230 Male characters are much more likely than female characters to murder for money. More than half of all the murders by male characters in this sample are committed for profit. In contrast, less than 10% of the female murderers murder for money. Women characters are much more likely to murder for love than men characters. Forty-four percent of the murders by women characters are committed for reasons of the heart, while less than 1% of the male murderers can be assigned to this motive type.
Women characters are also more likely than men characters to murder for hate or to murder in anger, but the percentage differences between the sexes on both of these motives are considerably smaller than the percentage differences on money and love. the two major motives. Women and men characters are about equally likely to murder to end blackmail or to protect themselves from an earlier crime. Both women and men characters most frequently choose to shoot their victims to death. About 43% of the murderers of both sexes employ a gun as their weapon. The next favored murder technique for men characters is strangling, followed by stabbing in third place, and bludgeoning in fourth. In contrast, the second choice for women is stabbing, followed by poisoning and intentional drug overdosing in third place, and again bludgeoning in fourth.
Women mystery characters in general are unlikely to have same sex friends. In contrast, men mystery characters often 231 do have friends of the same sex. Instead of being friends, women are often set up as rivals, and the rivalry usually centers on a man. Men and women characters in mysteries are often physically described in very different ways. Descriptions of women characters tend to be more elaborate than descriptions of men characters. Female descriptions often focus on the woman's figure or shape, while male descriptions focus on the man's facial structure or features. Character descriptions often include observations about styles of dress, but while the descriptions of female clothing tend to study the body beneath the clothes, the descriptions of male clothing seem to be used to establish financial or social stature. Lastly, women characters are more than twice as likely as men characters to fall in love during the course of the mystery story. Men and women mystery authors are about equally likely to employ a love interest in their stories, but while women authors allow the romance to continue happily, one-fifth of the men authors shatter the romance by killing off one of the two lovers.
Twice as many women mystery authors as men mystery authors wrote mysteries that were low in sexrole stereotyping, and while the majority of the women writers are in the low or medium stereotyping categories, the majority of the men authors are in the high stereotyping group 232 The oldest authors, those 60 years old and older, have the highest percentage in the low stereotyping category, whereas the youngest authors, those under 40, have the lowest percentage in this category. It was suggested that this finding might be partly attributed to the fact that a majority of the authors under 40 are in the 1955 sample.
But it was also noted that when the authors are separated into two age brackets, divided at 50 years of age, the findings for 1955 show three times as many authors from the older age bracket in the low stereotyping category as authors from the younger age bracket.
While an author's occupation doesn't seem to have much effect on the amount of sexrole stereotyping in his or her mystery novels, the author's education does. Authors with a college or graduate school education are far less likely than authors with a high school education to write mysteries that are high in sexrole stereotyping. Married authors are less likely to write mysteries low in sexrole stereotyping and more likely to write mysteries high in sexrole stereotyping than single authors. British authors are more likely than American authors to be found in the low stereotyping group, but they are also more likely to be found in the high stereotyping group as well.
Authors who have written over ten mystery novels are slightly more likely to write mysteries low in sexrole stereotyping than authors who have written ten or less 233 mystery novels. Mysteries written in the classic puzzler style show the highest percentage of low stereotyping, while police procedural mysteries and private eye mysteries are most frequently high in sexrole stereotyping. Lastly, most of the authors in the sample did not use a pseudonym, but the authors who did write under an assumed name were considerably more likely to be found in the low stereotyping category, and considerably less likely to be found in the high stereotyping group than the authors who used their real names. The sample for this study covers three time periods so that changes in the portrayal of male and female mystery characters over time can be examined. For the most part, the findings on the character variables do not show a large amount of change over time, although there are some significant changes in character behavior across the three sample periods. There is a 12% decrease in the percentage of women who are physically hurt or attacked between the
1955 novels and the 1975 novels. There is an increase in sexual behavior for both sexes between 1965 and 1975. And, there is a decrease in crying by women characters over time. While 36% of the women characters cry in the 1955 novels, by 1975 this figure drops to 25%. About u% of the men characters cry during the mystery, and this figure does not change over time.1 234
Many of the findings that have just been recapitulated can be related to one another. Some of these relationships have already been noted. More women characters than men
characters are single partly because women characters tend to be younger than men characters. More men characters than
women characters display victim behavior partly because
major characters display far more aggressive and victim behavior than secondary characters, and more men characters than women characters are major characters.
There are many more male main characters than female main characters because there are many more men mystery authors, and almost all men mystery authors write about male main characters, while women mystery authors employ both male and female main characters. The overwhelming tendency for men mystery authors to employ a male main character suggests one
explanation for the overrepresentation of male characters in general, and as major characters in particular, in the mystery novels. Men mystery authors, who make up the bulk of the mystery author's population, appear to be more comfortable writing about male characters. Sixty-eight percent of the characters written by the men authors in this
sample are male. However, the overrepresentation of male characters in the sample cannot be wholly explained as a function of the overrepresentation of men mystery authors in
the author population because the findings also show that over half of the characters written by the women authors in this sample are also male. 235
Men authors tend to maKe a larger proportion of their major characters male than women authors (76% vs. 60%) , but again more than half of the major characters written by the women authors are male. In short, while the overrepresentation of men writers in the mystery author's population may explain part of the overrepresentation of male characters in the mystery novels, the findings indicate that both men and women mystery authors tend to employ more male characters, and to give these male characters larger roles than female characters in their stories. Women characters are far less likely than men characters to receive a college or graduate school education and, consequently, it is not surprising to find the bulk of the women characters employed in the lower status occupations or in no occupation at all.
There are more women characters who are not mothers than women characters who are but, again, this finding can probably be explained by the large proportion of young women in the sample. The tendency for the women characters to be young might also explain the relative paucity of female characters who are able to solve the mystery in the story. One study in formula fiction noted that "Age is considered a status measure because of the tendency in this literature to associate age with increased authority, experience, and wisdom" (Whitehurst, 1980:330). Over 60% of the women 236 characters in this sample are reported to be young, and this may explain why only slightly over one-fifth of the women characters are able to solve the mystery in the end. Men characters, on the other hand, are far less liKely to be young, and far more liKely to solve the mystery in the story.
The lack of "authority, experience, and wisdom" associated with youthfulness may also explain why so many more women characters than men characters require rescuing in the end. While the vast majority of the men main characters are able to solve the mystery and to extricate themselves from any dangerous situations in which they happen to land in the process, the vast majority of the women main characters don't solve the mystery, and over a third of the women main characters are unable to save themselves when they find themselves in serious trouble. This difference in ability between the sexes may be partly explained as an example of the inexperience of youth, but it also can be related to differences in the occupational experiences of the sexes in mystery novels. Men characters are far more likely than women characters to be employed in occupations that afford them skills and experiences valuable to the mystery-solving process.
Forty-three percent of the male mystery characters have occupations that provide frequent and direct contact with criminal activities (i.e., private eyes, spies, police 237 officers, FDI agents, criminals, lawyers, judges). Less than 10% of the female characters are employed in these occupations. The bulk of the female characters are either unemployed or work in jobs that rarely provide them with the expertise needed to solve a criminal mystery. In other words, it shouldn't be surprising to find that private eyes and police officers are more likely to solve the mystery than schoolteachers and nurses. It also shouldn't be surprising to find that, unlike the majority of male main characters in this sample, female main characters rarely become involved in a mystery through their profession. In the first place, a full third of the women characters in the sample are unemployed. And in the second place, of the women who do work, very few of them are professionals of any sort and, as was mentioned above, even fewer of them are in professions that provide some contact with criminal situations. Thus, while the vast majority of the men characters become involved in the mystery through their occupations, the vast majority of the women characters become involved in the mystery through their family and friends. From the onset, the mystery assumes a personal basis for women characters—they are helping a friend or relative, rather than a client or associate--which may explain why women main characters are twice as likely as men main characters to fall in love in the course of the story. In other words, it 238 may be that women characters are more liKely than men characters to get romantically involved in the course of the story because women characters confront their mysteries in a social setting, while men characters are more liKely to meet their mysteries in the course of business. Another reason why women characters are more liKely than men characters to fall in love during the course of the story may be that women characters need a romantic subplot much more than men characters, considering the type of roles generally given to women characters in mystery novels. About one out of every three women characters does not have an occupation; almost one out of every two women characters does not have any sort of role in the mystery; and approximately four out of every five women main characters are not able to solve the mystery in the story. Falling in love, then, gives the women characters something to do while the men characters are busy solving the mystery. Similarly, the often present female rivalry is another subplot that occupies the women characters' time while the mystery is being resolved. The differences in the descriptions of men and women characters in the mysteries suggest that physical appearance is a more important variable for women characters than for men characters. Women characters tend to be more elaborately described, and the descriptions of women characters frequently focus on the woman's body, while the 239 descriptions of men characters generally focus on the man's face. In other words, women characters tend to be defined in terms of their bodies, while men characters are defined in terms of their faces. Descriptions of faces reveal personality; descriptions of bodies, on the other hand, reveal sexuality. Along this same line, the findings show that women characters are much more liKely to be age-identified in general, and identified as young in particular, than men characters. Age is a more important variable for women characters for the same reason that physical descriptions are more elaborate for women characters. Women characters are largely defined in terms of their physical attractiveness, and a woman's age affects both her physical appearance and her sexual desirability.
The importance of sexuality for women characters also explains why women characters are more frequently identified in terms of marital status and parenting status than men characters. Women characters need to be defined as single or married, or as mothers or nonmothers, because these two variables, liKe age, affect a woman character's sexuality.
Single women and nonmothers are generally considered more sexually available than married women and mothers.2 Some of the findings on the relationships between the author variables and the treatment of men and women characters in the mystery novel can also be related to one 240 another. For example, the inverse relationship between author's age and amount of sexrole stereotyping can be explained by differences in author's style. As was noted in
Chapter 2, the popularity of various styles of mystery writing has changed over the past thirty years. Classic puzzler mysteries were most popular during an earlier period in time and, consequently, most of the classic puzzlers in this sample were written by the older mystery authors. The findings show that three times as many of the older authors than the younger authors wrote classic puzzler mysteries. The findings also indicate that mysteries written in the classic puzzler style are the most frequent mysteries in the low stereotyping category. In contrast, 40S5 of the mysteries written by the youngest authors are private eye mysteries, and the findings show that close to 70/» of the private eye novels fall into the high stereotyping category. Consequently, the finding that the oldest authors in the sample have the highest percentage of mysteries in the low stereotyping category, and that the youngest authors in the sample have the highest percentage of mysteries in the high stereotyping category can be partly explained by differences in the authors' styles of mystery writing. Similarly, the finding that British authors are twice as liKely as American authors to be found in the low stereotyping group can be explained by the fact that three times as many British authors than American authors wrote mysteries in the classic 241 puzzler style, a style that is sometimes referred to as the
English Tea Mystery. The finding that married authors are less liKely to be low in stereotyping and more liKely to be high in stereotyping than single authors can be partly explained by the fact that over twice as many women authors than men authors in this sample are single. Women authors are twice as liKely as men authors to be in the low stereotyping category and the heavy representation of women in the single category explains the relatively high percentage of single authors in the low stereotyping group. Many of the previous studies on women in mystery novels and other types of formula fiction have found a pervasive division of women characters into good and bad types. In Chapter 4, it was noted that some studies have found that women mystery characters are frequently given secondary roles and consequently do not undergo sustained character development. Instead, they are often divided into good and bad types, with the women of the latter type usually coming to a rather dismal end. This division of women characters into good and bad camps is present to some extent in the sample for this study. Many of the novels that feature a female rivalry also feature a good girl/bad girl dichotomy as well. For example, in the 1955 novel Justin Bavard. by Jon Cleary, there are only two women characters in the story, Julie 242 Kirkbride and Blanche Palady, both of whom hate each other intensely. Julie is a former socialite, turned rancher's wife, who is desparately unhappy with her new style of life.
She's mean, racist, vain, sharp-tongued, vengeful, and scornful of her husband's efforts to make his inheritance, the ranch, a viable concern. Blanche, on the other hand, is a nurse and embodies many of the nurturing qualities inherent to the nursing profession. She's kind, loving, good-humored, helpful, and loyal. When the story ends,
Julie is dead, having been fatally speared by an elderly ranch hand, who kills Julie to protect his boss, Julie's husband, from Julie's machinations. Blanche, on the other hand, gets the good girl's highest reward: a husband, in this case the story's main character, Justin Bayard. Another example of a good girl/bad girl dichotomy can be seen in Joan Aiken's 1965 novel. The Fortune Hunters. The good girl in this story is Annette Sheldon; the bad girl is Joanna Southley. Annette is sweet, kind, vulnerable, and newly-rich. Joanna is conniving and manipulative, and has designs on Annette's new-found wealth. In the course of the story, Joanna steals Annette's boyfriend, tries to steal
Annette's job, and sets Annette up to be hypnotized and married by her equally evil cousin, a man who wants to use both Annette's money and her artistic talents for his own selfish purposes. Joanna, like most bad women, is foiled in the end. In her case, her attempts to blackmail her cousin 2U3 into sharing Annette's wealth drives him into a murderous rage, a rage Joanna doesn't survive. Annette, on the other hand, quickly finds a new man and ends the novel on a cruise. The Scorjuonls Tail, a 1975 novel by William Haggard, provides another example of a good girl/bad girl split. The good girl in this story is Encarna Ramiro, a young woman of wealthy means who has forsaken her comfortable nackground and devoted her life to helping drug addicts. The bad woman is Samantha Gore, a flamboyant opera singer who is both ambitious and power-hungry. Samantha becomes an agent for the Communist Party but her political actions can hardly be described as ideologically based: For the pure milk of doctrine she cared not a damn. She saw communism as a convenient front for the world's most efficient and ruthless elite, and this she'd be happy to join when the Day came in her own broken country. She ached for power and she meant to have it (p. 103) .
In the end, Samantha, having outlived her usefulness to her communist friends, is about to be killed, while Encarna, on the other hand, is about to be married. The difference in sexuality between the good girl and the bad girl that was noted in some of the other studies on women characters in formula literature can also be seen in some of the mysteries in this sample. For example, in the 1955 mystery Poison in the Pen, by Patricia Wentworth, the bad girl, who is described as "a vain, selfish, idle and 244 undisciplined young woman," sleeps with the good girl’s fiance, although, of course, by the end of the story the good girl has found a new man who is much more worthy of her love and affection. Julie KirKbride, the bad girl in Justin Bail§El» anc* Samantha Gore, the bad girl in The Scorpion’s Tail, are also sexually active characters. Julie has an extramarital affair and also taunts her husband by openly admiring the ranch hands throughout the story. Samantha is characterized as a woman with a voracious sexual appetite: She Knew she couldn't live without lovers. She owed herself that as a good determinist, and she needed an ample and varied diet. The variation was just as important as amplitude (p. 155).
Both Julie and Samantha receive the traditional bad girl punishment for their sexuality—the death sentence—and, interestingly, Samantha's sentence is executed by her latest lover who, unbeknownst to her, is actually another Communist agent. Uhile the good girl/bad girl dichotomy has been found in many of the studies on women characters in mystery novels and other types of formula fiction, researchers who have specifically studied women detectives, rather than women mystery characters in general, have found that the woman detective is one female character who has frequently been able to escape the limiting boundaries of the good girl/bad girl dichotomy. 245
Women detectives are generally more complicated characters than women nondetectives in this genre, and the research that was reviewed in Chapter 4 found that the style of the female detective has changed radically over time. While the earliest women detectives tended to be eccentric and elderly, the modern female detective has finally achieved the ordinariness that has long characterized many of the male detectives. Although there are relatively few women detectives in the sample of this study, there are still some indications of the change in the portrayal of women detectives that has been noted in other studies. All but two of the six women detectives in the 1955 and 1965 novels are of the eccentric or elderly variety. In contrast, three of the four 1975 women detectives are normal characters. For example, Norah
Hulcahaney, the female detective in the 1975 mystery The Bab£ Merchants. by Lillian O'Donnell, and Tessa Crichton Price, the female detective in the 1975 mystery Nursery Tea and Poison, by Anne Morice, are both ordinary women who competently solve the mystery in their stories without relying on either hunches, coincidences, or flamboyant behavior of any sort. There are many more men detectives than women detectives in the sample, and the men detectives also show signs of change over time. Many of the male detectives in the 1955 and 1965 novels are almost caricaturist figures. For 246 example, James Bond, the hero of Ian Fleming's 1955 novel £§SiDQ Royale, endures hours of excrutiating torture without breaking. Milo March, the hero in M. E. Chaber's 1965 mystery Wanted: Dead Men, is another example of this extreme in the continuum of male detectives. A publisher's blurb on the back cover of this novel neatly sums up Milo's character: "Milo proves once again that he is shrewd, solitary, a hard drinker, and splendidly male...Milo March knows how and Milo never gives up."
There are some Milo March-type characters in the 1975 novels. For example, special agent Philis in the 1975 novel Your Money and Your Wife, by Ritchie Perry, is the prototypical British secret agent: strong, handsome, virile, aggressive, and extremely attractive to women. But, in contrast to special agent Philis, there are also some male detectives in the 1975 novels who represent a new type of male detective: an intelligent, sensitive, and sometimes even introspective male detective. For example, Moses Uine, the hero in Roger L. Simon's 1975 mystery, Tyirkey, is a private detective but also a father who not only cares about his kids but actually cares for them while his ex-wife is off "finding herself" in Europe (p. 5). Spenser, the hero in Robert B. Parker's 1975 mystery Mortal Stakes. is another example of the modern male detective. In the midst of solving mysteries as a highly successful private detective, Spenser also performs the 247 mundane tasks of everyday life (tasks that were performed for rather than detectives like James Bond) : I drank my first cup of coffee while I made a mushroom omelet with sherry, and my second cup of coffee while I ate the omelet along with a warm loaf of Arab bread, and read the morning Globe. When I finished I put the dishes in the dishwasher, made the bed and got dressed (p. 8).
A final example of this new type of male detective is Travis McGee, the hero in John D. MacDonald's 1975 mystery
The Scarlet Ruse. McGee is, in some ways, a classic hard-boiled detective; he's a tough, solitary hero who is capable of handling a great deal of brutality. But unlike the early hard-boiled detectives, McGee is a thinking man.
In fact, he's downright introspective at times: I’ve seen around me all the games and parades of life and have always envied the players and marchers. I watch the cards they play and feel in my belly the hollowness as the big drums go by, and I smile and shrug and say, Who needs games? Who wants parades? The world seems to be masses of smiling people who hug each other and sway back and forth in front of a fire and sing old songs and laugh into each other's faces, all truth and trust. And I kneel at the edge of the woods, too far off to feel the heat of the fire. Everything seems to come to me in some kind of secondhand way which I cannot describe. Am I not meat and tears, bone and fears, just as they? Yet when most deeply touched, I seem, too often, to respond with smirk or sneer, another page in my immense catalog of remorses. I seem forever on the edge of expressing the inexpressible, touching what has never been touched, but I cannot reach through the veil of apartness. I am living without being truly alive. I can love without loving. When I am in the midst of friends, when there is laughter, closeness, empathy, warmth, sometimes I can look at myself from a little way off and think that they do not really know who is with them there, what strangeness is there beside them, trying to be something else (p. 218). 248 8.2 QISCUSSION The findings from this study indicate that men and women mystery characters are portrayed in very different ways.
The findings also indicate that the portrayal of women mystery characters is heavily influenced by the traditional sexrole stereotypes. Gaye Tuchman defines sexrole stereotypes as ,rset portrayals of sex-appropriate appearance, interests, skills, behaviors, and self-perceptions" (Tuchman, 1970:5). Research has shown that sexrole stereotypes are learned in the socialization process or, in other words, sexrole stereotypes are learned during the "process by which individuals acquire the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that enable them to participate as more or less effective members of groups and the society" (Duberman, 1975:23).
Socialization begins at birth and is an on-going process throughout the life cycle. Sexrole socialization also begins at birth. Researchers have discovered that parental treatment of infants varies by the infant's sex. For example, Goldberg and Lewis (1969) found that mothers of female babies touched their infant girls more frequently than mothers of male babies. Mothers of infant girls also talked to and handled their babies more often than mothers of infant boys. Seven months later, the researchers found that the girl babies sought more maternal contact than the boy babies or, in other words, that the girl babies had learned to reciprocate their mother's earlier attention. 249
Sexrole socialization begins in the home and continues in the outside world. Serbin and O’Leary (1975) conducted a study on preschool teachers and discovered that the teachers rewarded little boys for being aggressive; rewarded little girls for being dependent; and paid much more atention to the little boys than the little girls.
School texts further the socialization process. For example, one study on elementary school textbooks in five subject areas (reading, spelling, science, math, and social science) found that women appeared in less than a third of the total illustrations and that, while men were shown in over 150 occupational roles, almost all of the women were depicted as housewives (Weitzman and Rizzo, 1974). Children’s television also plays a part in sexrole socialization. Studies on children’s television programs and commercials have found that the traditional sexrole stereotypes are rarely challenged on the television screen. For example, a study by Sternglanz and Serbin (1974) found that males heavily outnumbered females on children’s programs and commercials, and that male television characters are frequently portrayed as aggressive, constructive, and helpful, while female television characters are often presented as passive and deferential.
But this stereotypical presentation of the sexes is not confined only to children's television. Adult television is equally stereotypical, as are other forms of adult mass 250 media. In other words, the sexrole socialization that begins in infancy and continues throughout the life cycle affects the treatment of women in all forms of the mass media. The review of women in the mass media that is presented in Appendix A clearly supports Gaye Tuchman's contention that women have been "symbolically annihilated" by the mass media (Tuchman, 1978, 1979) . This "symbolic annihilation" is caused not only by the underrepresentation of women in the mass media, but also by the stereotypical denigration of women in the mass media or, in other words, by the portrayal of women as "incompetent or inferior" (Tuchman, 1978:13) .
The findings from this study add support to the contention that popular culture generally presents a largely stereotypical portrayal of women (Weibel, 1977). As
Weitzman notes, in the traditional sexrole stereotypes, "Women are characterized as passive, dependent and emotional in contrast to men, who are considered aggressive, active and instrumental" (Weitzman, 1979:153). Examining each of these characteristics individually, one can see that the findings from this study clearly demonstrate a stereotypical presentation of the sexes in mystery fiction. For example, the women mystery characters in this study are portrayed as much more passive characters than the men mystery characters. This passivity takes many forms. The women mystery characters are more likely than 251 the men mystery characters to play no role in the mystery. The men characters, on the other hand, are much more likely than the women characters to play an active and important role in the mystery. Women characters rarely play a detective role, and in the vast majority of the stories featuring a female main character the female main character does not solve the mystery herself. Women characters are twice as likely as men characters to play a victim role in the mystery and, as WeiDel notes, passivity is often associated with victimization, if only because the passive character is more easily victimized than the active character who is logically expected to mount more resistance to an attack (Weibel, 1977:ix). In addition, male mystery characters display significantly more aggressive behavior than female mystery characters. Women mystery characters also display more passivity with regard to their initiation into the mystery. The vast majority of the men characters become involved in the mystery through their occupations. The mystery begins in a professional context and the other participants in the mystery are usually strangers to the male main character.
Being strangers, they generally can exert no power to force the male main character to involve himself in the mystery and, instead, the male main character usually makes an active decision to involve himself in the mystery. Women main characters, on the other hand, generally become 252 involved in a mystery when it affects a relative or friend. As such, women main characters rarely have the opportunity to make an active decision to involve themselves in the mystery; rather it is foisted upon them by their emotional ties. And, interestingly, in 11% of the mysteries featuring a female main character, the female main character is drawn into the mystery by forces completely beyond her control and, consequently, she has absolutely no choice in the matter whatsoever.
Women mystery characters are also more likely to display dependent behavior than men mystery characters. Over 90% of the male main characters are able to independently solve the mystery by the end of the story, as compared to only 22% of the female main characters. The vast majority of the female main characters have to depend on either someone else solving the mystery or the mystery solving itself without any direct intervention on their part. And in over a third of these stories, the heroine not only has to depend on someone, or something, else solving the mystery, she also has to depend on someone else rescuing her from what looks to be certain death. The rescuer is always male. The opposite scenario, a male depending on a female for rescue, occurs only twice in this sample of 163 novels. Differences in emotionality and instrumentality between the sexes in mystery stories can best be seen in the motives attributed to male and female murderers in this sample. 253
While the vast majority of the women murderers murder for emotional or expressive reasons, the vast majority of the men murderers murder for instrumental reasons.
Similarly, the difference in the initiation of the two sexes into the mystery can be seen in instrumental versus emotional terms. Most of the men characters become involved in the mystery through their occupation and, consequently, the solving of the mystery in the male case generally serves an instrumental goal. Women characters, on the other hand, become involved in the mystery thorugh their emotional ties and thus in their case the solving of the mystery serves an expressive goal. Women mystery characters are portrayed as more emotional than men mystery characters in other ways as well. Women mystery characters are much more likely than men mystery characters to cry during the course of the story. Women mystery characters are also more likely to fall in love. While almost half of all the women main characters fall in love during the course of the mystery, only one-fifth of the men main characters display this type of emotional behavior. Women characters are also much more likely to be identified by their emotional ties than men characters. While the parenting status of almost 60S of the male characters is never reported, SOS of the women characters are defined on this variable. Similarly, nearly one-third of the men characters are in the unknown category with 254 respect to marital status, as compared to only 3% of the women characters.3
In short, the findings from this study reveal the strong presence of sexrole stereotyping in mystery fiction. Yet, as was indicated earlier, the stereotypical presentation of women characters is not confined solely to mystery novels, host of the research studies discussed in Appendix A document the widespread existence of sexrole stereotyping in many forms of the mass media. This strict adherence to stereotypes has led to a distorted picture of reality in much of popular culture, and the mystery novel is no exception. Most mystery stories center on a crime, usually a murder, and its aftermath. There is generally a murderer and victim(s). There are motives, weapons, and the usual trappings of such criminal activities. In short, the mystery story generally features all of the elements of a real crime, but the resemblance to reality often ends at this point. The truth of this statement can be seen by comparing the results of various victimization surveys to the findings from this study. The most striking inconsistency between victimization surveys and the findings from this study, and also other studies on victimization in popular culture, is the gross overrepresentation of women as crime victims, particularly as murder victims. Seventeen percent of the female characters in this study were victims of murder, as compared 255 to 11% of the male characters. In real numbers, these percentages translated into 100 women victims and 109 men victims or, in other words, U8% of the murder victims in this study were female and the remaining 52% were male. In real life, victimization surveys have consistently reported a large difference in the sex ratio of murder victims, with the number of male victims exceeding the number of female victims by at least three to one (Swigert and Farrell, 1976). For example, Marvin E. Wolfgang, in his classic study on homicide in Philadelphia between the years of 1948 and 1952, found that only 23% of the victims were female, and the remaining 77% were male (Wolfgang, 1969). Nancy H. Allen, in a study on homicide in California in 1960 and 1970, found that the rate for males was about three times higher than the rate for females (Allen, 1980) . Henry P. Lundsgaarde found a slightly larger difference in his study on homicide in Houston in 1969. In this study, men outnumbered women as homicide victims by a ratio of approximately four to one (Lundsgaarde, 1977). A similar ratio was found in a study on victimization in 17 American cities during 1967 by the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, which found that women comprised 21% of the murder victims (BowKer, 1979) .* Yet, despite the consistent reports of victimization surveys noting the relatively low percentage of female 256 murder victims, studies on victimization in the mass media have often noted the overrepresentation of women as homicide victims, and also as the victims of other violent crimes as well.5 For example, a six year study by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on television programming between 1969 and 1974 noted that, "Throughout the six years sampled, females emerged as the most frequent victims of violence" (U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1977:37). Other studies on television have found that, although there are generally more male homicide victims than female homicide victims, the ratio of Killer to Killed is often different for the two sexes. These "risK ratios," as they are called, have been used by George Gerbner and his associates in a series of studies monitoring television violence. As Gerbner and his colleagues explain, the risK ratios deal with the structure of power demonstrated in TV violence and with conceptions of social reality that television viewing cultivates in the minds of viewers. The most elementary--and telling—social structure involved in a violent scenario is that of violents and victims. The ratio of those who inflict and those who suffer violence provide a calculus of life’s chances for different groups of people in the world of television drama. These Risk Ratios are obtained by dividing the more numerous of these two roles by the less numerous within each group. A plus sign indicates that there are more violents or Killers than victims or Killed and a minus sign indicates that there are more victims or Killed than violents or Killers (Gerbner et al., 1977:171). 257
The risk ratios for killers and killed for television programs between 1967 and 1975 were +1.96 for males and 1.00 for females. In other words, this study found that there were nearly two male killers for every male killed, however for every female killer, one female was killed (Gerbner and Gross, 1976). A similar study on prime time television programs between the years of 1969 and 1972 found that female murder victims outnumbered female murderers by a ratio of three to one, while male murderers outnumbered male murder victims by a ratio of two to one (Tedesco, 1974) . The findings from the current study on mystery novels reported that 6% of the women characters and 13« of the men characters were murderers in the stories. These percentages translated into 35 women murderers and 129 men murderers, which means that approximately one-fifth of the murderers in this sample were female, and four-fifths were male. These proportions are actually quite close to the proportions reported in several victimization surveys. For example,
Wolfgang found that 19% of the murderers in his Philadelphia sample were female. Similarly, Donald T. Lunde reported that one-fifth of the murders in the United States in the
1950s were committed by women, although this percentage rose to one-quarter in the 1970s (Lunde, 1976). Swigert and Farrell, in a study on homicide in the Northeastern United
States between 1955 and 1973, found that 20% of the murder defendants were female (Swigert and Farrell, 1976). Lastly, 258
Lundsgaarde found that men outnumbered women as murder assailants in Houston in 1969 by a ratio of four to one, and the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of
Violence found that women comprised one-fifth of the murderers in their study on homicide in 17 American cities in 1967.
But while the mystery novels present a fairly accurate portrayal of the percentage of male and female murderers, the percentages of who murders whom, in terms of the gender of the Killer and the Killed, are somewhat different from reality. In the mysteries sampled for this study, the breakdown of victim/killer by sex showed that 12% of the victims were males Killed by females; 42% of the victims were males killed by males; 37% of the victims were females killed by males; and 9% of the victims were females killed by females. The figures from Swigert and Farrell's study on homicide in the Northeastern United States are only similar to the mystery sample in the first of the four categories of killings. In their study, 17% of the victims were males killed by females; 54% of the victims were males killed by males; 26% of the victims were females killed by males; and only 4% of the victims were females killed by females. Wolfgang's study on homicide in Philadelphia also showed a much smaller percentage of female/female murders and a much higher percentage of male/male murders than the 259 statistics derived from the mystery sample. In Wolfgang's study, only 3% of the murders were of women by women, and over 60S of the murders were of men by men. The motives attributed to murderers are another area in which the findings from the current study vary widely from the results reported in actual victimization surveys. In the mystery stories, almost half of all the women murderers murdered for love, and the idea behind this motive—namely, that women become involved in crime for romantic reasons—is an idea frequently employed to explain female criminal activity in the mass media (Estep, 1982; Millman, 1975). In contrast, over half of the men murderers in the mystery novels murdered for money. In real life, the most frequent motive for both men and women murderers is anger. For example, Lundsgaarde reported that 80% of the murders in his study on homicide in Houston were motivated by a quarrel or fight. Similarly, in Swigert and Farrell's study, 74%, or nearly three-quarters, of the murders resulted after a quarrel or argument. Thirty-six percent of these arguments were between relatives or lovers; another 30% were between friends, neighbors, and acquaintances; and the remaining 8% were arguments between strangers. A full 90% of the murders by women fall into one of these three categories, as do 70% of the murders by men.
Only 22% of the murders by men are profit-oriented, a category that also includes 7% of the murders by women. 260
Love-motivated murders are apparently too rare to be categorized. While love-motivated murders are generally not reported, murders of loved ones (or, perhaps, formerly-loved ones) are often reported. For example, Wolfgang noted that 25% of the murders in his Philadelphia study involved relatives. Another 2Q% involved close friends, and 14% involved acquaintances. Similarly, Swigert and Farrell's study on homicide in the Northeastern United States found that 34% of the murders involved relatives; 17% involved friends; 28% involved acquaintances; and only 20% involved strangers. Lundsgaarde found a particularly high percentage of family murders in his study on homicide in Houston: fully 41% of the murders in this study were between relatives or lovers. As Wolfgang notes, the large number of murders occurring between family members and friends suggests "the ambience of amiability within which most murders take place" (Wolfgang, 1969:56) .
The weapons used by murderers in the mystery novels cover a broad gamut. Forty-three percent of the murderers of both sexes used a gun. The second favored method for women mystery murderers was a knife (22%), followed by poisons and drugs (10%). Men mystery characters, on the other hand, were more likely to strangle their victims (17%), or to stab them (11%) . 261
In real life, most studies show a much higher proportion of shooting deaths. For example, the Uniform Crime Reports indicate that 66% of the murders committed in the United
States in 1975 were caused by handguns, rifles, and shotguns (Allen, 1980). Cutting or stabbing instruments accounted for another 18%. Other weapons, including clubs and poisons, were used in 8%; and 9% of the murders were committed with "personal weapons," meaning some part of the murderer’s body, such as a fist or a foot.
Lundsgaarde reported an even higher percentage of firearm deaths. In his study on homicide in Houston, 86% of the murders were committed with a gun; 11% were committed with a knife; 2% were committed with a tool; and 1% was committed with "personal weapons." Swigert and Farrell's data on homicide in the
Northeastern United States show some similarity on weaponry to the statistics noted from the mystery novels. In Swigert and Farrell’s study, 50% of the male murderers and 41% of the female murderers used a gun; 20% of the males and 35% of the females used a knife; 17% of the males and 10% of the females beat their victims to death; and 12% of the males and 14% of the females used some other weapon or technique. In conclusion, a comparison of the findings from the mystery novels sampled for this study with the results of various victimization surveys shows some similarities, but also some major differences. The percentage of male and 262 female murderers, and the distribution of murder weaponry in the mystery novels are both fairly similar to at least some of the findings reported by victimization researchers*
The big differences occur when the percentage of male and female victims, and the distribution of murder motives are examined. Female victims are grossly overrepresented in the mystery sample, and the predominant motives in the mystery novels (i.e., love for women, money for men) are not at all predominant in real life. One explanation for these large differences is that the picture presented in the mystery novels is a picture consistent with the dictates of the traditional sexrole stereotypes. As was noted earlier, the traditional sexrole stereotypes characterize women as passive, dependent, and emotional, and characterize men as active, aggressive, and instrumental.
Being passive and dependent, women are especially vulnerable to victimization. Being emotional, which includes the sub-attribute of being romantic, women murder for love.
Murdering for love also explains why the percentage of females killing females is twice as high in the mystery novels as in real life, i.e., women in mystery novels kill their competition. In real life, however, women are much more likely to kill their husband, a crime that occurs in anger. The anger motive is also the most frequent motive for men in real life. While the mystery novels portray the typical male murderer as rational and instrumental. 263 murdering for money or some other instrumental goal, the victimization studies consistently report that murder is as emotional a crime for men as it is for women. The vast majority of all murders, for both sexes, occur during a quarrel or a fight or, in other words, the vast majority of murderers Kill during the heat of the moment, when their emotions are raging out of control. It was noted earlier that one out of every four books sold today is a mystery novel. Thus, the characterization of women as passive, dependent, and emotional reaches a large audience. Very little research has been done on the direct influence of literature on readers so it is difficult to determine what effect this stereotypical portrayal of women mystery characters has on the mystery readership. However, as was noted in Chapter 5, studies have shown that both attitudes and behavior can be influenced by the visual media. Yet the visual media are not created in a cultural vacuum. Much of what is produced for the visual media originates in literature. Dozens of mystery characters have made a direct transition from the printed page to the silver screen. Perry Mason, Mike Hammer, James Bond, Moses Wine,
Lew Archer, the Saint, the Shadow, Shaft, Philip Marlowe, Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Miss Jane Marple, Charlie Chan, Nick and Nora Charles, Philo Vance, Nero Wolfe, Ellery
Queen, Sam Spade, and Matt Helm are just some of the mystery characters who have moved easily from one medium to the 264 other. In addition, many of the mystery characters that originate in the visual media are based on literary types. In short, the treatment of women characters in contemporary
American mystery fiction, as well as other forms of literature, has consequences that extend beyond literary bounds. The truth of this statement is easily verified by examining the research on women in the visual media (Appendix A) . The findings from this study suggest some avenues for future research. For example, one study might compare the new female detective to the new male detective. There are some signs in the 1975 sample novels of a new type of female detective. Some of the previous studies on women in mystery fiction have noted that women detectives entered a new phase beginning in the mid-1960s and continuing through the present. The "ordinary" woman detective emerged during this period. There are also some indications in the 1975 sample novels of a new type of male detective, as well. This new male detective is less of a super-hero than some of the earlier male detectives, and he also demonstrates some personal characteristics previously not found in most male detectives. An interesting research study might draw a sample of mystery novels from the 1970s through the present and compare male and female detectives, on the hypothesis that male and female detectives are becoming more similar as they both become more ordinary. 265
Another study might compare the treatment of women by mystery style. For example, the women characters in this study are largely passive, emotional, and dependent characters. As was mentioned earlier, the traditional sexrole stereotypes play a large role in the characterization of men and women in the mystery novel. However, the treatment of women characters varies by the style of mystery writing. The findings indicate that women characters in the classic puzzler style mysteries show the least amount of sexrole stereotyping, while women characters in the private eye and police procedural styles show the most amount of sexrole stereotyping. Classic puzzler mysteries were most popular prior to the two world wars. As was noted in Chapter 2, the Golden Age of the classic puzzler or the classical riddle story ended abruptly with the advent of World War I. The classic puzzler simply did not seem to fit with the uncertainties and upheavals of the postwar world. Although classic puzzler mysteries were still written after the war, a new style of mystery writing—the hard-boiled mystery novel—usurped the popularity of the old classic puzzler.
The hard-boiled hero that emerged during this period was almost a polar opposite of the hero in the classic puzzler mystery. In fact, while the focus in the classic puzzler stories was generally upon the mystery rather than upon the detective, in the hard-boiled novels this order was 266 frequently reversed. The hard-boiled detective hero was very different from the classical detective hero. As was noted in Chapter 2,
The adjective ’'hard-boiled” derived from the detective's personality. Whereas the classical detective was sensitive, intelligent, introspective, and unfailingly polite, the hard-boiled detective was tough, cynical, aggressive, street-smart, and prone to violent outbursts.
In short, men mystery characters changed considerably in the metamorphosis of the classic puzzle-solver into the hard-boiled private eye. An interesting research question might ask whether women mystery characters changed during this transformation as well and, if so, how. One hypothesis might suggest that the passivity, emotionalism, and sexuality of women characters in mystery novels became more pronounced with the introduction of the hard-boiled hero, inasmuch as the focus on the hero in the hard-boiled style of mystery writing reduces most women characters to the status of mere male adjuncts. The passivity and emotionalism of women mystery characters stands in stark contrast to the aggressive, active, and emotionally stoical style of the hard-boiled hero. Similarly, the sexuality of women mystery characters can be used to emphasize the sexual prowess of the male mystery hero. An interesting study for future research might draw two samples of mystery novels—a sample from the last of the Golden Age classic puzzlers and a sample from the first of the hard-boiled detective 267 stories—and compare the treatment of women characters in these two styles of mystery novels. The findings from this proposed study might explain some of the findings from the present study. ENDNOTES
Mobile the percentage of men characters who cry during the course of the story is low compared to the percentage of women characters who cry (4% vs. 29S), this male percentage may still seem strikingly high, considering the strong social norm prohibiting male tears, and considering that detective fiction is often regarded as a ',he-man,, type of literature. However, it is important to remember two facts. First, most of the male characters in mystery stories are not detectives, nor do they play the detective role, so this 4% figure doesn't indicate that 42 of the detectives end up crying at some point in the story. Second, terrible things often happen in mystery novels. Loved ones are killed, maimed, and mutilated on a fairly regular basis in mystery stories, and these events certainly occur more frequently in mystery fiction than in most other types of literature. Consequently, both men and women characters have a lot more reason to cry in mystery novels than in just about any other type of novel. 2There seems to be some ambivalence in the treatment of the institution of motherhood in mystery novels. On the one hand, women characters who have had the opportunity to become mothers (i.e., women characters who are or were, at one point, married) but who are not mothers are frequently noted as such. For example, the following two line description of the main character's girlfriend in Donald E. Uestlake's 1975 mystery Help, I Am Being Held Prisoner succinctly notes the woman's age, occupation, marital status, and parenting status: "Her name was Marian James, she was twenty-nine, childless, separated from her husband, and also a teacher at Amalgamated High" (p. 171). While this particular example does not contain any evaluation of how the state of being childless has affected the character in question, frequently a woman's lack of children is seen as a negative or sorrowful state of being. For example, in the introduction of one of the major female characters in D. B. Olsen's 1965 novel. The Bank with the Bamboo Door, the author notes that the character, although married, had never had children "...but the raw grief over that had subsided into regret" (p.42).
Another example can be found in Dick Francis's 1965 mystery. Odds Against. in a passage about a childless, but otherwise successful, woman character:
268 269
Dolly looked at Chico, smiling, the mother-hunger showing too vividly in her great blue eyes. She might be the second-best head of the department the agency possessed, with a cross-referencing filing-index mind like a computer, she might be a powerful, large, self-assured woman of forty-odd with a couple of marriages behind her and an ever hopeful old bachelor at her heels, but she still counted her life a wasteland because her body couldn't produce children (p. 68). Men characters, in contrast, are almost never identified as being childless. In fact, the parenting status of the majority of the men characters in this sample is never even noted. The ambivalence in the treatment of motherhood in mystery novels can be seen as a sort of paradox. On the one hand, married, widowed, or divorced women without children are often portrayed as at least somewhat saddened and, at most, devastated, by this lack of maternal opportunity. On the other hand, however, in 5% of the mystery novels in this sample at least one of the murders in the story can be traced back to the influence of a bad mother. For example, in the 1955 novel Th£ Whistling Shadow, by Mabel Seeley, Bucky Knowles, whose mother is a brilliant lawyer, but a cross and neglectful mom, murders Johnny Kiskadden, his best friend, and then tries to extort $3,000 from Johnny's grief-stricken mother, Gail, by pretending to Kidnap her newborn grandson. He caps all of this off by trying to kill Gail when she delivers the ransom money, but after a long struggle Gail is able to disarm Bucky and save herself. At the end of the story, a sobbing Bucky places the blame squarely on his mother's back: "You think it was fair, Johnny should have you for a mother, when what I had was mine?" (p. 197). In another 1955 mystery. Beast in View by Margaret Millar, Helen Clarvoe, the murderer, is a woman with a split personality. Helen's personality is quiet and retiring; her alter ego, Evelyn, is brash, aggressive, and violent. Eventually Evelyn kills another character, and at the end of the story Evelyn kills Helen, which, naturally enough, means that she kills herself as well. In the meantime, the reader learns that the Evelyn personality is a paranoid version of a real Evelyn who had been Helen's school friend years before. This Evelyn had been pretty and popular, and Helen's own mother often had compared Helen unfavorably to Evelyn. As the story notes, the teenage Helen often heard her mother saying things like "What a pity we didn't have a girl like Evie" or "Heaven knows I've done everything I can. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear" (p. 122). 270
In the 1965 novel The Lonely Breeze, by Van Siller, Betty Willard, a three-time murderer, is a spoiled, young woman whose mother is roundly blamed as the person who has "ruined" Betty by giving in to her every whim: If ever a boat was missed, Helen Willard had missed it with her daughter. From everything I had seen and heard, Betty had been doing exactly what she wanted to for years while her mother stood on the sidelines eager to grant her every wish. I glanced sideways at Helen and wondered how far she would go to protect the child she had ruined (p. 141). In the 1975 novel My Brother * s Killer. by Jean Potts, Garth Sullivan, the main character, tries to Kill his younger brother. Howdy, and the reader is informed that Garth's rage at his brother began years before in his childhood when Garth's mother openly favored Howdy over Garth. In another 1975 novel, ShaRe Hands Forever by Ruth Rendell, a husband and wife team coldbloodedly Kill an innocent cleaning woman who accidentally stumbles on to their criminal doings. On the first page of this story the reader is introduced to the male murderer's mother, and although the author never openly blames the mother for her son's crimes, it is very clear that the son did not grow up in anything approaching a loving home: She was waiting for her son. He was one minute late and his unpunctuality had begun to afford her a glowing satisfaction. She was hardly aware of this pleasure and, had she been accused of it, would have denied it, just as she would have denied the delight all failure and bacKsliding in other people brought her. But it was present as an undefined sense of well-being that was to vanish almost as soon as it had been born and be succeeded on Robert's sudden hasty arrival by her own usual ill-temper (p.l). But while mothers are blamed for at least one murder in 5% of the mysteries in the sample, fathers are never blamed for their part in raising a child who becomes a Killer. And while 5% is not a particularly large proportion of the murders, it's important to remember that, by and large, mothers of characters are very rarely included in mystery novels. In other words, while the reader gets to meet mothers liRe Helen Willard and BucKy Knowles's mom, it is the rare novel that introduces the mother of characters liRe James Bond or Perry Mason.
3It is also interesting to observe that women characters are much more liKely to be age-identified than men 271 characters, and women characters are also more liKely to be portrayed as young than men characters. The findings from this study show that close to two-thirds of the women characters are reported to be "young," which is twice the percentage of men characters in this category. This is not an isolated finding in popular culture. Several studies on television programming and magazine advertising nave noted that women characters are generally presented as younger than men characters (England et al.., 1981; Ferguson, 1978; Tedesco, 1974; Tuchman, 1978; U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1977). One explanation for the overrepresentation of younger women in popular culture is that younger women may be more easily characterized in terms of the traditional sexrole stereotypes. In other words, it may be more credible to characterize a young (and, consequently, more inexperienced) woman as passive, dependent, and emotional, than a middle-aged or older woman.
♦Two of the victimization surveys have homicide samples close in size to the number of homicides in the sample of mystery stories (209). Lundsgaarde's sample of homicides in Houston in 1969 included 268 cases, and Wolfgang's sample of homicides in Philadelphia between 1948 and 1952 included 588 cases. Difference of proportions tests comparing the percentage of female homicide victims in the sample mysteries (48») to the percentage of female homicide victims in Wolfgang's study (23«) and to the percentage of female homicide victims in Lundsgaarde's study (20%) show the differences between the mystery sample's percentage of female victims and the victimization surveys' percentages of female victims to be significant at the .001 level. 5Table 16 in Chapter 6 of this study presented statistics on non-homicidal victimizations in the sample mysteries by character sex. This table noted that 75 of the women characters were victims of a non-murder crime, as compared to only 35 of the men characters. These numbers translated into 13% of the women characters versus 3« of the men characters. Victimization studies in the real world, however, reveal that, with the exception of the crime of rape, women are far less likely to be criminally victimized than men. For example, Hindelang, in a study of criminal victimization in eight American cities in the early 1970s, found that the rate of personal victimization (which would include assault, robbery, purse snatching, pocket picking, and rape) was 75 per 1,000 males and 47 per 1,000 females (Hindelang, 1976). Another study, which examined criminal victimization in 17 large American cities in 1967, found that women comprised 100% of the rape victims, but only 34% of the aggravated assault victims, 29% of the unarmed robbery victims, and 11% of the armed robbery victims (Bowker, 1979) . Appendix A WOMEN AND THE MASS MEDIA
The vast majority of the research in the area of women and the mass media has been conducted within the last fifteen years. In other words, this is a relatively new area in the discipline of sociology. Much of the research in this area has concentrated on the visual mediums, chiefly television and films. By and large, the research on women in TV and film shows an unequal representation, as well as a stereotypic presentation, of the sexes. For example, Joseph DominicK, In a content analysis of television programming during the years 1953 through 1977, found that the number of women in starring roles on television programs remained fairly constant, with 3 out of every 10 roles going to women. Dominick also noted that at no point in this 24 year period did shows exclusively starring women comprise more than lux of the prime-time programming of a season, while shows exclusively starring men never fell below 30% of the prime-time programs in any one year during this period (Dominick, 1979). Dominick's findings were confirmed by other researchers who have also documented the consistent underrepresentation of female characters in television programming (Barcus, 1977; Downs and Gowan, 1980; McNeil,
272 273
1975; Rickel and Grant, 1979; Sternglanz and Semin, 1974; Tuchman, 1978; U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1977;
Waters, 1982). Studies conducted in this area also show a rigid occupational stereotyping on the television screen, with women characters overwhelmingly restricted to traditional female occupations and roles (Dominick, 1979; Downs, 1981; Rickel and Grant, 1979; Sternglanz and Serbin, 1974; U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 1977). In addition, researchers have discovered that male television characters are more likely than female television characters to be portrayed as work-oriented and are more likely to solve their own problems, while female characters are more likely to need help in solving their problems (Downs, 1981); women characters are more likely to be shown in the home (Downs,
1981; Harris and Voorhees, 1981); women characters employed outside of the home are significantly less likely to be married than their male counterparts (Weigel and Loomis,
1981) ; women characters are more likely to be in the roles of victims, to be the butts of jokes, to be the targets of insults, and to be the makers of self-deprecating remarks (Rickel and Grant, 1979); women characters serve primarily as auxiliaries to men (McNeil, 1975) ; and women characters are more likely to be in younger age brackets than men characters (Harris and Voorhees, 1981). 274
Similar findings are reported for television advertising as well. A survey of research on women in the mass media by
Gaye Tuchman in 1979 and a study of television advertising in 1980 (Knill et al., 1901) revealed that little has changed in the representation and presentation of women since the early fifties. For example, research in the roles of women in television commercials shows that men are overwhelmingly used as voice-overs, announcers, or authority figures; men and women are equally liKely to be product representatives, but women almost always represent products for the Kitchen or bathroom; women are not presented in outside occupations in numbers anywhere near their true representation in the labor force; men product representatives are usually older than women product representatives; television commercials featuring all-male casts outnumber all-female television commercials by a ratio of 3 to 1; and commercials aimed at boys display higher rates of action, aggression, and variation, as well as quicKer shifts of scenery and a more aggressive sound tracK than commercials aimed at girls (Barcus, 1977; Courtney and Whipple, 1974; DominicK and Rauch, 1972; Knill et al., 1981;
RicKel and Grant, 1979; Tuchman, 1978; Welch et al., 1979). The image of women in motion pictures is similar to that on television. Once again, with only a few exceptions, women characters are underrepresented and limited to fairly traditional roles and occupations. While some researchers 275 interested in the role of women in movies analyze specific types of films—for example, Kalisch et al. (1980) content analyzed 200 motion picture portrayals of nurses between the years of 1930 and 1979, and McCaffrey (1980) explored the images of women in West African films—other researchers look at the treatment of women characters in motion pictures from a more historical perspective (Haskell, 1973; Rosen, 1975; Weibel, 1977). These latter researchers have discovered that the portrayal of women in motion pictures rarely coincides with reality. Or as Molly Haskell bluntly states, "In the movie business, we have an industry dedicated for the most part to reinforcing the lie"—the lie being a distorted and disparaging view of women as a whole, especially in the movies made in the last few decades (Haskell, 1973:2) .
Haskell, Rosen, and Weibel all agree that the roles of women in the movies have been declining—in number, quality, and treatment of character—since the forties and early fifties, although each offers a different explanation. Haskell claims that the decline was due to the growing predominance of homosexuals, misogynists, and men with very narrow, sexually-oriented views of women in positions of power in the film industry; Rosen attributes the changing treatment of women to dominant cultural conditions; Weibel takes an economic stance, arguing that the movie industry, being profit-motivated, has latched onto a pattern of 276 filn-making, that is violent, sensationalist, and oriented toward male bonding, and that, consequently, "leaves women out" (Weibel, 1977:133).
Research has also been done on the image of women in the print media. Women in magazines, especially women's magazines, have been the focus of some researchers.
Overall, the research findings in this area show some evidence of improvement in the treatment of women. For example, L. Ann Geise (1979) examined the female role in middle class women's magazines from 1955 to 1976 by conducting a content analysis of 160 nonfiction articles and features in Ladies Home Journal and RedbooK Magazine. Her findings for both magazines indicated a progressive change with the passage of time in attitudes towards women and women’s issues, especially female employment.
Similarly, a study by Sheila Silver (1976) on women's roles in McCall's Magazine between 1964 and 1974 found that over this 10 year time span the image of women in this magazine changed with women being shown as both more mobile and independent as the decade progressed. A study on adolescent magazine fiction, which was based on a content analysis of Sevepteen Magazine over an 18 year span, also reported a change in the role of female characters within the magazine. The study showed a growing equalization between the sexes in regard to verbal initiations in male-female interactions. In 1961 female characters 277 initiated dialogue with male characters only 16« of the time; by 1973 this figure had risen to 54% (Reed and Coleman, 1981) .
But not all of the research in this area reports improvements in the treatment of women. Some researchers have found that women characters are still heavily stereotyped in magazine fiction. Cornelia Butler Flora looKed at a sample of 202 women's magazine stories and found that the image of the passive female was frequently upheld and rewarded (Flora, 1971). Another study discovered that close to half of a sample of 216 women's magazine stories had plots structured around romantic love (Fowler, 1979)•
Researchers have also examined magazine advertisements. One study found that advertisements have not Kept pace with the social changes of the last few decades (Belkaoui and
Belkaoui, 1976). The authors reported that women are underrepresented and most often shown in nonworKing roles in magazine advertising, while men are most often portrayed in
work settings. Researchers have also looked at the role of women in newspaper cartoons. One study reported that cartoon
females, when compared with cartoon males, were less numerous, made fewer appearances, had fewer lines, played fewer "lead" roles, occupied many fewer positions of
responsibility, and were much more likely to be portrayed as juveniles (Streicher, 1974). Another study, this time 278
looking at editorial cartoons, reported that "overall men dominated the cartoons and the women" in them (Meyer et al., 1980:21). This study was based on a content analysis of the
July 4th edition of 5 newspapers over a hundred year period (1870-1976). The findings showed that in a sample of 600 cartoons, women were clearly depicted ("in a recognizable way and not part of a vaguely drawn background") in about 25% of the cartoons, while the corresponding figure for men was 90%. The frequency of appearance by women figures in
these cartoons actually declined throughout the period under study. While 35% of the cartoons drawn in the period
between 1890 and 1930 were female, only 11% of the cartoons
in the thirties, forties, and fifties depicted women. This figure rose slightly in the sixties and seventies (18%), but was still considerably lower than the starting number for
this study. Other researchers have looked at children's literature and textbooks. Two famous studies of children's literature
reported similar findings. One found that 72% of the characters in a sample of children's books were male (Women on Words and Images, 1972). finother group of investigators
looked at award-winning children's fiction and found that one-third of the books in the sample contained no female characters whatsoever, and that, overall, male characters outnumbered female characters 11 to 1, when the characters were depicted as humans, and 95 to 1, when they were 279 depicted as animals (Weitzman et al., 1972). Doth studies reported that traditional sexrole stereotypes were supported and reinforced in children’s literature. Fairy tales have also been examined, and—not surprisingly, given the caricaturist nature of this genre—the findings have shown a stereotyped picture of the sexes in this form of literature (Brown, 1977; Lieberman, 1972; Waelti-Walters, 1979). One researcher concluded: The reading of fairy tales is one of the first steps in the maintenance of a misogynous, sex-role stereotyped patriarchy, for what is the end product of these stories but a lifeless humanoid, malleable, decorative, and interchangeable—that is, a ’’feminine woman" who is inherited, bartered or collected in a monstrous game of Monopoly (Waelti-Walters, 1979:180).
Research on textbooKs indicates many of the same biases found in children's literature. Studies of textbooks at all levels of education show that women and men are not presented equally or accurately (Ehrlich, 1971; Gordon and Shankweiler, 1971; Jeffrey and Craft, 1973; Kirschner, 1973;
Scully and Dart, 1973; Stindt, 1977; Weitzman and Rizzo, 1974) . A study on elementary school textbooks in 5 subject areas showed that women appeared in only 31% of the total illustrations and that, while men were shown in over 150 occupational roles, almost all of the women were depicted as housewives (Weitzman and Rizzo, 1974) . Another study analyzed 27 gynecological textbooks which were written over the past 3 decades. This study revealed a continuing 280 tendency in gynecological textbooKs to present traditional views of female sexuality and personality. In addition, women in these texts were primarily stereotyped as wives and mothers, and were portrayed as having a "lesser capacity for sex" than men (Bart and Scully, 1973). Appendix B CODE SHEET—SECTION A: CHARACTER DATA
Novel:
Author:
Year of Publication:
Character's Name:
Major____ or Secondary Sex: I
Occupation:
Education:
Age:_. Marital Status
Parenting Status:
Role in Mystery:______
Behavior Checklist. (Check if character exhibits behavior.) ___ Carries a weapon ___ Threatens another character with a weapon ___ Is threatened with a weapon ___ Physically attacks or hurts another character ___ Is physically attacked or hurt by another characater ___ Engages in voluntary sexual relations ___ Cries, weeps, or sobs ___ Dusts, vacuums, or cleans house ___ Cooks or prepares a meal Type of Mystery:______
281 282
CODE SHEET—SECTION D: AUTHOR DATA SHEET
Name:______
Book:______
Year of Publication:______
Sex:____ Age:____
Education:______
Occupation:______
Marital Status:______
Country:______
Number of prior mysteries published:_____
Pseudonym : Yes—same sex____ Yes—opposite sex____ No 283 Explanation of Code Sheets Major and Secondary Characters Whitehurst (1980:336) defined a major character as "one who appeared throughout the entirety of the novel, whose social and personal characteristics were Known, whose fate was of importance, and who appeared on at least 20X of all pages,” She defined secondary characters as people who appeared less often than major characters, and who were generally used as "devices to advance the plot” (Whitehurst, 1982:336). Far less is Known about them than what is Known about major characters, and their eventual fate is not always reported or important. I used Whitehurst's definitions of major and secondary characters. In addition to major and secondary characters, most novels have tertiary or bacKground characters, who are unimportant, infrequently appearing, and about whom little to nothing is reported. For this very reason, tertiary characters could not be included in my analysis. Characters Occupation This variable was coded into the following classifications (the characters' occupations were recorded as specifically as possible): 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1. Private Eyes and Spies (private detectives, intelli gence agents, revolutionaries, spies) 2. Police or FBI (police, sherrifs, FBI, wardens, prison guards) 3. Criminals and Deviants (thieves, conmen, drug dealers, informants, blacKmailers, smugglers, hitmen, gamblers, prostitutes, strippers, masseuses, sex surrogates, madams) 4. Professionals and Business Executives (doctors, law yers, judges, college professors, scientists, engi neers, historians, archeologists, economists, archi tects, editors, publishers, reporters, agents, administrators, business managers, stocKbroKers, accountants, realtors) 5. Leaders (government, military, religious) 6. Traditional Female Jobs (school teachers, librarians, social worKers, nurses, secretaries, typists, office clerKs, receptionists, booKKeepers) 7. PinK and Blue Collar Jobs (waitresses, manicurists, hair stylists, shop clerKs, carpenters, mechanics, factory worKers, bartenders, dishwashers, laborers, doormen, sol diers, watchmen, trucKdrivers, janitors, building supers, salespeople, seamen) 8. Servants (maids, butlers, chauffers, houseKeepers, bodyguards, cooKs, gardeners) 284
9. Artists and Entertainers (sculptors, painters, pho tographers, dress designers, interior decorators, authors, singers, actors, actresses, magicians, dancers, models, producers, directors, musicians, chorus girls, athletes) 10. No Occupation (unemployed, housewives) 11. Other (students, retirees, farmers, landlords, forest rangers, ranchers, pilots, horsetrainers, occupation unknown)
Character * s Education
This variable was coded into the following categories:
1. Some college or a college degree 2. Some graduate or professional school or a graduate degree 3. No college or unknown Character * s Age
1. Under 30 2. 30 to 39 3. 40 to 49 4. 50 to 59 5. 60 and Over 6 Unknown Character 1s Marital Status 1. Single 2. Married and Living Together 3. Divorced or Separated 4. Widowed 5. Unknown
Parenting Status Characters who are reported to be parents will be noted as such. Nonparents and unknown are the only other categories for this variable. 285 Character1s Role in Mastery The role the character plays in the solving of the mystery was coded as follows: 1. Victim of murder 2. Victim of another serious crime 3. Murderer 4. Accomplice 5. Suspect 6. Detective (i.e., mystery-solver) 7. Secondary detective or detective's assistant 8. Murderer and murder victim 9. Perpetrator of a serious crime (excluding murder) 10. Mo Role
Sty^e of Mystery
1. Classic Puzzler 2. Suspense and Chase and Adventure Stories 3. Damsel in Distress or Gothic Mysteries 4. Police Procedural 5. Private Eye Mystery 6. International Intrigue or Spy Story 7. Other Appendix C SAMPLE NOVELS
1955 Sample
Bones the Barrow, by Josephine Bell. London: Methuen; New York: Macmillan.
The Evil of Time. by Evelyn Berckman. New York: Dodd Mead; London: Eyre and Spottiswoode.
Tour de Force, by Christianna Brand. London: Joseph; New York: Scribner.
Destination Unkpo^D. by Agatha Christie. London: Collins, also published as So Many Steps to Death. New York: Dodd Mead. The Deadly Climate, by Ursula Curtiss. New York: Dodd Mead; london: Eyre and Spottiswoode.
Room for Murder. by Doris Miles Disney. New York: Doubleday; London: Foulsham.
Fatal Relations, by Margaret Erskine. London: Hammond, also published as Old Mrs. Ommanney Is pead. New York: Doubleday, also published as The Dead Don^t Speak. Roslyn, New York: Detective Book Club.
Miscast for Murder, by Ruth Fenisong. New York: Doubleday, also published as Too Lively to Live. New York: Spivak.
Death and Mr. Potter, by Hae Foley. New York: Dodd Mead; London: Boardman, also published as The Peacock is a Bird of Prey. New York: Dell. Murder Comes to Ederj, by Leslie Ford. New York: Scribner; London: Collins.
286 287
£ Question of. Murder. by Anthony Gilbert. New York: Random House, also published as » Is She De§Q Too?. London: Collins. The Talented Mr. Hinle^, by Patricia Highsmith. New York: Coward McCann; London: Cresset Press. The Pav^djap Report, by Dorothy B. Hughes. New York: Duell, also published as The Body on the Bench. New York: Dell.
The Bird’s Nest, by Shirley Jackson. New York: Farrar Straus; London: Joseph, also published as Lizzie. New York: New American Library. Spinsters in Jeopardy« by Ngaio Marsh. Boston: Little Brown; London: Collins, also published as The Bride of Death. New York: Spivak. The Long Body, by Helen McCloy. New York: Random House; London: Gollancz.
Fatal in My Fashion, by Patricia McGerr. New York: Doubleday; London: Collins. Beast in View, by Margaret Millar. New York: Random House; London: Gollancz.
Stranger in the Dark, by Helen Nielsen. New York: Washburn; London: Gollancz.
Go, Lovely Rose, by Jean Potts. New York: Scribner; London: Gollancz.
The Content Assignment, by Holly Roth. New York: Simon and Schuster; London: Hamish Hamilton, also published as The Shocking Secret. New York: Dell.
Glass on the Stairs, by Margaret Scherf. New York: Doubleday; London: Barker.
The Whistling Shadow, by Mabel Seeley. New York: Doubleday; London:~JenkinsT” also published as The Blonde with the Deadly Past. New York: Spivak. 288
Madam, Kill You Talk?, by Mary Stewart. New York: Mill; London: Hodder and Stoughton.
Heckoning. by Lee Thayer. New York: Dodd Mead, also published as Murder on the Pacific. London: Hurst and Blackett. Poison in the Pen, by Patricia Wentworth. Philadelphia: Llppincott; London: Hodder and Stoughton.
The Tooth and the Nail, by Bill S. Ballinger. New York: Harper; London: Reinhardt and Evans. ItlS fase of the Amateur Actor, by Christopher Bush. New York: Macmillan; London: Macdonald. Justin Bayard, by Jon Cleary. Hew York: Morrow; London: Collins, also published as Dust in the Suq. New York: Popular Library.
To£ Assignment. by George Harmon Coxe. New York: Knopf; London: Hammond. The Frazier Acquittal. by Frederick C. Davis. New York: Doubleday; London: Gollancz. Whistle Past the Graveyard, by Richard Deming. New York: Holt Rinehart; London: Doardman, also published as Give t|]£ Girl a Guq. New York: Spivak.
Casino Royale, by Ian Fleming. New York: Macmillan; London: Cape, also published as. You Askgd for It. New York: Popular Library.
112S Case of the Nervous Accomplice. by Erie Stanley Gardner. New York: Morrow; London: Heinemann.
Enn* HiliSL# Run. by William Campbell Gault. New York: Dutton; London: Boardman.
21]S L'sn iQ Question. by John Godey. New York: Doubleday; London: Boardman, also published as The Blonde Betrayer. New York: Spivak.
Death Has Three Lives, by Brett Halliday. New York: Torquil; London: Jarrolds. 289
The Blackboard Junale* by Evan Hunter. New York: Simon and Schuster; London: Constable.
The Sinister Strangers. by Clarence Budington Kelland. Roslyn, NY: Detective Book Club.
Guest in the House, by Philip MacDonald. New York: Doubleday; London: Jenkins, also published as No Timg for Terror. New York: Spivak. Gideopls Day, by J. J. Marric. New York: Harper; London: Hodder and Stoughton, also published as Gideon of Scotland Yajrd. New York: Berkley.
The Bifj Honey, by Harold Q. Masur. New York: Simon and Schuster; London: Boardman.
Roque Coe# by William P. McGivern. New York: Dodd Mead; London: Colins. The Taming of Carney Wilde, by Bart Spicer. New York: Dodd Mead; London: Hodder and Stoughton. The Broken Doll,, by Jack Webb. New York: Holt Rinehart; London: Boardman. Flight Into Terror, by Lionel White. New York: Dutton; London: Boardman.
1965 Sample
The Fortune Hunters, by Joan Aiken. New York: Doubleday.
The Mind Readers, by Margery Allingham. New York: Morrow; London: Chatto and Windus. The Turret Room, by Charlotte Armstrong. New York: Coward McCann; London: Collins. A Thing That Happens to You, by Evelyn Berckman. New York: Dodd Mead, also published as Keys from a Window. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode. Monkey on a Chain, by Charity Blackstock. New York: Coward McCann, also published as When the Sun Goes Down. London: Hodder and Stoughton. 290 In a Glass Darkly, by Janet Caird. New York: Morrow, also published as Murder Reflected. London: dies. fit Bertram*s Hotel, by Agatha Christie. New York: Dodd Mead; London: Collins. Out of £he Da£k, by Ursula Curtiss. New York: Dodd Mead, also published as Child’s Play. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode. The Hospitality of the House, by Doris Miles Disney. New York: Doubleday, also published as Unsuspected Evil. London: Hale.
Call after Midnight. by Mignon G. Eberhart. Hew York: Fandom House; London: Collins. The Strange Blue Yawl, by Lucille Fletcher. New York: Random House; London: Eyre and Spottiswoode. Call It Accident, by Rae Foley. New York: Dodd Mead; London: Hale.
Jealous One, by Celia Fremlin. Philadelphia: Lippincott; London: Gollancz. The Fjlie on Devlin, by Catherine Gaskin. New York: Doubleday; London: Collins.
The Stgry-te^er. by Patricia Highsmith. New York: Doubleday, also published as £ Suspension of Mercy. London: Heinemann.
Marcft £o the Gallows, by Mary Kelly. New York: Holt Rinehart; London: Joseph.
The Death-Oringers. by Elizabeth Linington. New York: Morrow; London: Gollancz.
Pageant of Murder, by Gladys Mitchell. New York: British Book Centre; London: Joseph.
Verdict Suspended. by Helen Nielsen. New York: Morrow; London: Gollancz.
The Bank with the Bamboo Door. by D. B. Olsen. New York: Simon and Schuster; London: Boardman. 291
Dover Jhree, by Joyce Porter. New YorK: Scribner; London: Cape. The Only Good Secretary, by Jean Potts. New YorK: Scribner; London: Gollancz.
ID SicKness and in Health, by Ruth Rendell. New YorK: Doubleday, also published as Vanity Dies Hard. New YorK: Beagle; London: Long. The Corpse in the Flannel Nightgown. by Margaret Scherf. New YorK: Doubleday; London: Hale. The Lonely Breeze, by Van Siller. New YorK: Doubleday, also published as The Murders at Hibiscus Key. London: Haramond.
Airs above the Ground. by Mary Stewart. New YorK: Mill; London: Hodder and Stoughton. Quin *s Hide. by Margaret Sumraerton. New YorK: Dutton; London: Hodder and Stoughton.
Everyone Suspect. by Nedra Tyre . New YorK: Macmillan; London: Gollancz. Though I Know She Lies, by Sara Woods. New YorK: Holt Rinehart; London: Collins. h Uoven Web, by Pierre Audemars. New YorK: Doubleday, also published as Dead with Sorrow. London: Long. £ Fragment of Fear, by John Bingham. New YorK: Dutton; London: Gollancz. Tbe Case gf tiie Grand Alliance, by Christopher Bush. New YorK: Macmillan; London: Macdonald. £ Child Divided. by Henry Cecil. New YorK: Harper, also published as Fathers in Law. London: Joseph.
Wanted: Dead Men. by M. E. Chaber. New YorK: Holt Rinehart; London: Boardman. The Murder of Mary Steers, by Brian Cooper. New YorK: Vanguard Press, also published as Genesis 38. London: Heinemann. 292 With Intent to Kill, by George Harmon Coxe. New York: Knopf; London: Hammond.
Pa^er Albatross, by Rupert Croft-Cooke. New York: Abelard Schuman; London: Eyre and Spottiswoode.
£2D£lSE£# by E. V. Cunningham. New York: Doubleday; London: Deutsch.
Funeral in Berlin. by Len Deighton. New York: Putnam; London: Cape.
Portrait of a Dead Heiress, by Thomas B. Dewey. New York: Simon and Schuster; London: Boardman.
Up lot grabs, by A. A. Fair. New York: Morrow; London: Heinemann.
The Keys of Hell. by Martin Fallon. New York and London: Abelard Schuman.
The Diamond Bubble, by Robert L. Fish. New York: Simon and Schuster; London: Boardman.
Odds Against. by Dick Francis. New York: Harper; London: Joseph.
The King of the Rainy Country. by Nicolas Freeling. New York: Harper; London: Gollancz.
The Shadow1s Revenge. by Maxwell Grant. New York: Belmont. Post Mortem, by Hartley Howard. New York: Doubleday; London: Collins. The Midnight Man, by Henry Kane. Hew York: Macmillan, also published as Other Sins Only Speak. London: Boardman.
Is Skin-Deep. Is Fatal, by H. R. F. Keating. New York: Dutton; London: Collins.
Harlem Underground. by Ed Lacy. New York: Pyramid. The Boog Blue Goodby, by John D. MacDonald. New York: Fawcett; London: Hale.
The Far Side of the Dollar. by Ross Macdonald. New York: Knopf; London: Collins. 293
Gideon's Lot, by J. J. Marric. New York: Harper; London: Hodder and Stoughton. Sladd 's Evil, by Philip McCutchan. New York: Day; London: Harrap. £§rk Cypress, by Edwina Noone. New York: Ace. Iht? Twisted People, by Judson Philips. New York: Dodd Mead; London: Gollancz. The Interrogators, by Allan Prior. New York: Simon and Schuster; London: Cassell. Homicide Blonde. by Maurice Procter. New York: Harper, also published as Death tias a Shadow. London: Hutchinson.
Alias His Ulfe. by Stephen Ransome. New York: Dodd Mead; London: Gollancz.
The poorbell Rang, by Rex Stout. New York: Viking Press; London: Collins. Girl on the Run, by Hillary Uaugh. New York: Doubleday; London: Gollancz. Pity Him Afterwards. by Donald E. Westlake. New York: Random House; London: Boardman.
1975 Sample
Zurich AZ/900. by Martha Albrand. New York: Holt Rinehart; London: Hodder and Stoughton. Curtain: Hercule Poirot's Last Case, by Agatha Christie. New York: Dodd Mead; London: Collins. Plot Counter-Plot. by Anna Clarke. New York: Walker; London: Collins. Cry for Help, by Doris Miles Disney. New York: Doubleday; London: Hale.
Slowly the Poison. by June Drummond. New York: Walker; London: Gollancz.
Harriet Farewell. by Margaret Erskine. New York: Doubleday; London: Hodder and Stoughton. 294
One Q^ClocK at the Gotham, by Rae Foley. New York: Dodd Mead; London: Hale.
Dury Me in Gold Lame, by Stanton Forbes. New York: Doubleday; London: Hale.
The Black Tower, by P. D. James. New York: Scribner; London: Faber.
Checkmate, by Norah Lofts. New York: Fawcett; London: Corgi.
The Pimlico Plot, by Mary McMullen. New York: Doubleday; London: Hale.
Raven *s Forge. by Jennie Melville. New York: McKay; London: Macmillan.
Nursery Tea and Poison, by Anne Morice. New York: St. Martin's Press; London: Macmillan.
The Baby Merchants, by Lillian O'Donnell. New York: Putnam; London: Bantam.
The Package Included Murder, by Joyce Porter. Indianapolis: Eobbs Merrill; London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
My Brother\s Killer, by Jean Potts. New York: Scribner; London: Gollancz. ~
Shake Hands for Fver, by Ruth Rendell. New York: Doubleday; London: Hutchinson.
The Saffron Summer, by Jan Roffman. New York: Doubleday; London: Collins.
Deuces Wild, by Dell Shannon. New York: Morrow; London: Gollancz.
The Long Revenge, by June Thomson. New York: Doubleday; London! Constable. b. Show of Violence, by Sara Woods. New York: McKay; London: Macmillan.
Palomino Blonde, by Ted Allbeury. London: Davies, also published as Omega Minus. New York: Viking Press. 295
Three Layers of Guilt, by Jeffrey Ashford. New York Walker; London: Long. The Black Venus Contract, by Philip Atlee. New York Fawcett. The Big Kiss-Off of 1944, by Andrew Bergman. Hew YorK: Holt Rinehart! London: Hutchinson.
A Big Wind for Summer, by Gavin Black. New York: Harper; London: Collins, also published as SalS Force. London: Fontana. Too Late for Tears. by Harry Carmichael. New York: Saturday Review Press; London: Collins. Blue Death, by Michael Collins. New York: Dodd Mead; London: Hale. No Place for Murder. by George Harmon Coxe. New York: Knopf; London: Hale. The Extortioners, by John Creasey. New York: Scribner; London: Hodder and Stoughton. Assignment Abacus, by L. P. Davies. New York: Doubleday; London: Barrie and Jenkins. The White Lie Assignment, by Peter Driscoll. Philadelphia: Lippincott; London: Macdonald. The Silver Bears, by Paul E. Erdman. New York: Scribner; London: Hutchinson. High Stakes, by Dick Francis. New York: Harper; London: Joseph.
The Bugles Blowing, by Nicolas Freeling. New York: Harper, also published as What Arg Bugles Blowing For?. London: Heinemann.
The Mask of Mephisto. by Walter B. Gibson. New York: Doubleday. Hammett: A Novel. by Joe Gores. New York: Putnam; London: Macdonald.
The Scorpion♦s Tail, by William Haggard. New York: Walker; London: Cassell. 296
Troublonaker. by Joseph Hansen. Mew York: Harper; London: Harrap.
Hangman ?s Tide, by John Buxton Hilton. New York: St. Martin’s Press; London: Macmillan. Judas Country. by Gavin Lyall. New York: Viking Press; London: Hodder and Stoughton. The Scarlet Ruse, by John D. MacDonald. New York: Fawcett; London: Hale.
Blood Relatives, by Ed McBain. New York: Random House; London: Hamish Hamilton. The Matter of Paradise, by Brown Meggs. New York: Random House; London: Collins.
Mortal Stakes. by Robert B. Parker. Boston: Houghton Mifflin; London: Deutsch.
Honeymoon with Death. by Hugh Pentecost. New York: Dodd Mead; London: Hale.
Your Money and Your Wife, by Ritchie Perry. Boston: Houghton Mifflin; London: Collins.
Bank Job. by Robert L. Pike. New York: Doubleday; London: Hale.
Bloody Marvellous, by Julian Rathbone. New York: St. Martin's Press; London: Joseph.
Wild Turkey, by Roger L. Simon. New York: Simon and Schuster; London: Deutsch. Night Stop, by Elleston Trevor. New York: Doubleday, also published as The Paragon. London: New English Library. The Juror, by Michael Underwood. New York: St. Martin's Press; London: Macmillan. Landscape with Violence, by John Uainwright. New York: St. Martin's Press; London: Macmillan. Six Nuns and a Shotgun. by Colin Watson. New York: Putnam, also published as The Nakpd Nuns. London: Eyre Methuen. 297
Help I ftm Being Held Prisoner, by Donald E Westlake New York: Evans; London: Hodder and Stoughton. REFERENCES
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