'The Poetics of Deviance in Contemporary American Crime Fiction' by Christiana Gregoriou, BA MA Thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, November 2003 'Battle of Carnival and Lent' Bruegel, Pieter the Younger Flemish Painter (b. 1564, Bruxelles, d. 1638, Antwerp) Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................... 5 Ackno}vledgemenls ................................................................................................... 6 Chapter 1: Introduction .............................................................................................. 7 1.1 Background ........................................................................................................ 7 1.2 Aims ................................................................................................................... 9 1.3 Method and Material ....................................................................................... 11 1.4 Outline o[('ontents .......................................................................................... 15 Chapter 2: Narratologl' and Deviance ..................................................................... 17 2.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 17 2.2 The Structure ofNarratives ............................................................................. 20 2.3 Crime Fiction as Genre and as Popular Literature ........................................ 31 2. .f Deviance .......................................................................................................... -10 2.4.1 [jnguistic Deviance .................................................................................. 40 2.4.2 Social Deviance ........................................................................................ 52 2.4.3 Generic Deviance ...................................................................................... 61 2.5 Re\·iclt' .......... .................................................................................................... 66 Chapter 3: Contemporary Crime Fiction: Constraints and Development .......... 69 3.1 Introduclion ...... ............................................................................................... 6C) 3..2 ('rime Ficlion: Origins and De\·clopmelll................................................ .... ~U 3.3 Rules. Regularities and Constraints................................................................ 73 3.3.1 Defining the Crime Fiction Genre ............................................................ 73 3.3.2 Rules and Constraints ............................................................................... 76 3.3.3 Formulaic Regularities .............................................................................. 81 3.4 What sort ofan Attraction does Crime Literature hold for its Readers? ........ 87 3.4.1 Crime Fiction Reading as Pleasure ........................................................... 88 3.4.2 Crime Fiction Reading as an Addiction .................................................... 92 3.5 Crime Fiction and the Notion ofRealism ........................................................ 94 3.5.1 The Genre as a Mirror to Society .............................................................. 94 3.5.2 Challenging the Masculinity, Whiteness and Straightness of the Genre .. 97 3.5.3 From Private-Eye Novel to Police Procedural ....................................... 100 3.6 Character in Detective Fiction ...................................................................... 104 3.6.1 The Detective as the Criminal's Double ................................................. 104 3.6.2 Writers Focusing on the Murderer .......................................................... 106 3.7 The Future ofCrime Fiction .......................................................................... 108 3.8 Review ............................................................................................................ 109 Chapter 4: Linguistic Deviance: The Stylistic! of Criminal Justification .••••••••• 112 4.1 Introduction................................................................................................... 112 4.2 The Stv/istics ofJustification in Contemporary American Crime Fiction ..... 114 4.2.1 Contextualising the Crime Fiction extracts ............................................ 115 4.2.2 Stylistic Analysis of the Extracts ............................................................ 119 4.2.2.1 Type ofNarra,tion ............................................................................. 119 4.2.2.2 Criminal Mind Style and Viewpoint ................................................ 124 2 4.2.3 The Study's Conclusions ........................................................................ 131 4.3 A Further Investigation into the Portrayal ofthe Criminal Mind in Patterson ............................................................................................................................. 13-1 4.3.1 Contextual ising the Criminally-Focalised Extracts ................................ 134 4.3.2 The Poetics of the Criminal Mind ........................................................... 135 4.3.2.1 Extended Metaphorical Mappings ................................................... 137 4.3.2.2 Metonymies ..................................................................................... 141 4.3.2.3 Literalised Metaphors and Unidiomatized Idioms ........................... 142 4.3.2.4 Linguistic Connotations Altered ...................................................... 145 4.3.2.5 Personification and the Concretisation of Abstract Concepts ......... 147 4.3.2.6 Childishness and Colloquialism Evoking Irony .............................. 149 4.3.2.7 Creative Metaphors .......................................................................... 150 4.3.3 The Study's Conclusions ........................................................................ 152 Chapter 5: Social Deviance in Contemporary American Crime Fiction •••••••••••• 154 5.1 Introduction ................................................................................................... 154 5.2 Defining 'Abnormal Behaviour ': the Connelly Series ................................... 156 5.3 The Carnivalesque as Social Deviation in the Genre .................................... 161 5.3.1 Carnivals ................................................................................................. 161 5.3.2 Carnivalesque .......................................................................................... 166 5.3.3 The Carnival of Crime Fiction ................................................................ 169 5.4 Jungian Archetypes ........................................................................................ 178 5.4.1 Criminal Archetypes ............................................................................... 184 5.5 Review............................................................................................................ J98 3 Chapter 6: Generic Deviance in Contemporary American Crime Fiction ........ 200 6.1 Introduction ................................................................................................... ;]()O 6.2 On Defining Genre ......................................................................................... ]0-1 6.2.1 Wittgenstein's Family Resemblance Theory .......................................... 206 6.2.2 The Prototype Approach to Sense .......................................................... 210 6.2.3 Defamiliarisation and Genre ................................................................... 214 6.3 The Crime Fiction Genre........................................................................... .. ;] 1- 6.3.1 Cornwell's Generic Form: a Sub-Genre or a New Genre? ..................... 230 6.-1 What Constitutes Generic Deviance? ............................................................ 2-15 Chapter 7: Conclusion ............................................................................................. 247 7.1 Thesis Revielv ............................. .................................................................... 2-17 7.2 Meta(unctions o(Deviance ............................................................................ 250 ""7.. .)'I nHstlgatmg ,). D ellanceJ J' ................................................................................. -))-2 7. -I Writers on their Work .................................................................................... 259 References ................................................................................................................. 266 Abstract The study directly explores the three aspects of deviance that contemporary American crime fiction manipulates: linguistic, social, and generic. I conduct case studies into crime series by James Patterson, Michael Connelly and Patricia CornwelL and investigate the way in which the novelists correspondingly challenge linguistic norms, the boundaries of acceptable social behaviour, and the relevant generic conventions. The study particularly explores the nature of the figurative languaRe employed to portray the criminal mind in Patterson, and additionally examines the moral justification of crimes from all three series using the notion of mind style. I also challenge the nature of abnormality