History of the crime genre
Crime fiction is the genre of fiction that deals with crimes, their detection, criminals, and their motives, dominated by British and American writers. Most, though not all, crime novels share a common structure. First there is the crime, usually a murder; then there is the investigation; and finally the outcome or judgement, often in the shape of the criminal's arrest or death. It is distinguishable from genres of fiction but its boundaries and conventions within this genre’s texts are blurred and often changing. The genre of crime fiction has been around for well over a century - it is typically a 19th, 20th and 21st century genre, and its popularity doesn’t seem to be waning. The genre's flexibility is perhaps one reason for its wide and enduring appeal and means different things to different people at different times. Unlike some literary fiction, the crime novel retains many of the time-honoured techniques of fiction character, such as theme, narrative, and tension. There is now such a huge variety within the genre, it also has several sub-genres - the six main sub-genres are Early Crime Fiction (sensation novels), The Golden Age, The Intuitionists, The Realists, Hard-boiled and Contemporary Crime Fiction. These sub-genres are categorised by their time periods and also their writing styles and conventions. As time and contexts changed crime fiction grew and developed as a genre.
Crime fiction generally started in 1841 with the publication of Edgar Allan Poe's story 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue'. From there it gradually spread over the United States, Great Britain and France. By the turn of the century crime fiction was generally acknowledged as a new and special kind of literature. The position of the most famous crime fiction author in this brief history is thought to be Arthur Conan Doyle 1880 - 1920 (a medical practitioner from Edinburgh) who invented Sherlock Holmes. The Sherlock Holmes mysteries are said to have been singularly responsible for the huge popularity in this 'locked room mysteries' genre. The evolution of locked room mysteries was one of the landmarks in the history of crime fiction. Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories first appeared in serial form in the monthly Strand magazine in Britain. The series quickly attracted a wide and passionate following on both sides of the Atlantic, and when Doyle killed off Holmes in The Final Problem, the public outcry was so great and the publishing offers for more stories so attractive that he was reluctantly forced to resurrect him.
Equally as important in the history of the crime fiction genre was Agatha Christie(1890-1976) who was born in Devon and educated at home, studying singing and piano in Paris. Agatha served as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse in Torquay during WW1, and worked in the dispensary of University College Hospital, London, during WW2. Her best known detectives are Hercule Poirot, Jane Marple and Mr. Parker Pyne. The evolution of the print mass media in Britain and America in the latter half of the 19th century was crucial in popularising crime fiction and related genres.
Early Crime Fictions
The Early Crime Fictions of the late 1800s used conventions of their own and conventions which would now be considered stereotypical to the crime genre. Edgar Allen Poe was the Godfather of Early Crime Fiction. Poe was an American who wrote a character who had great intelligence, a poor view of police, rigorous observation and was excellently analytical. Before Poe, the early crime stories did not revolve around the individual detective. ‘The Murders In The Rue Morgue’ (1841) was the first of Poe’s three stories that were based on Dupin and they laid the basic foundation for the Crime Fiction genre to begin. The conventions that Poe created through his stories of Dupin were the first of Crime Fiction. Early Crime fictions evolved around plots which used disguise as a main aspect. This is most probably because police were not allowed to question suspects or interview witnesses unwillingly. To gather information a detective had to wear a disguise and linger around the crime scene and subtly manipulate information out of people present.
Dupin solves murders that occurred in sealed rooms that are seen to be a puzzle to everyone but himself. This convention has been carried on through Crime Fiction, especially in the Intuitionists sub-genre. One of the audience’s roles is to try to solve the mystery in unison with the detective, but this was not fully developed in early crime fiction texts. Reconstructing the crime was another typical convention of the Early Crime Fiction. This procedure became an important step in solving the crime in late nineteenth century. Crime Fiction in the time of Holmes gained great popularity and was the start of a snowball that gained momentum and recognition as a genre. Upholding the status quo was now apart of the Early Crime Fiction genre. The late nineteenth century used the current scientific advances of that time in their Crime Fiction. They contained blood and graphic crimes that showed characters with dark secrets and skeletons in their closets.
The Golden Age
Popularity of the Crime Fiction genre had begun at the turn of the century where a Crime Fiction boom was experienced. When world war one finished Crime Fiction entered The Golden Age. The era ended in the 1930s, although some extend it to around 1945, but two thirds to three quarters of composers still use The Golden Age template that has been perfected over the years. This style of writing in Britain was split into two sub-genres: The Intuitionists and The Realists. The fact that this period was so popular meant that people had different approaches to writing in the genre - and hence caused sub-genres to emerge.
The Intuitionists
The Intuitionists did not want their audience to be a spectator. They wanted their viewers to be involved in solving the mystery. The key component of The Intuitionists genre is the reader being in a position where he/she is as able as the detective to solve the crime through logic, intelligence and intuition. Another Intuitionists convention was the focus on the detective and the crafty plot. This sub-genre holds little danger towards the detective as he relies on logic and his wits to solve the crime. The plots are about the puzzle and mystery. In this way they are set apart from realism because they do not aim to portray reality.
The queen of crime fiction was born of The Intuitionists sub-genre. Agatha Christie was a female writer of Crime Fiction as The Golden Age saw an increasing number of female writers. It also saw the first female detectives, one of which was Christie’s Miss Jane Maple. Christie was a very popular writer of the 1920s and 1930s. One of the conventions she followed was of The Intuitionists but derived from Early Crime Fiction and that is to use the same character types that could be categorised. This is because Christie’s focus was the puzzle and putting the pieces together and not with the realism within a text. This convention is parallel to the board game ‘Cludo’, where there are set stereotypical characters with set weapons and a set room. There are many solutions to the game.
The Realists
The Realists were the flip side of The Intuitionists in the Golden Age of Crime Fiction. This sub-genre unlike the Intuitionists presented films as realistic as possible and they revolved around strict and careful detective work. Though this is a British school, Americans wrote in the sub-genre as well. One such writer was Dorothy L. Sayers who wrote the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. She was one of the most popular of the American writers in this sub-genre writing 11 novels and two sets of short stories featuring English aristocrat and amateur detective.
The Realists had believable settings that were carefully constructed and reflected society at the time, often focusing on the seedy sites of society for the crime to take place. They were far from unbelievable and were simply opposed to setting the story in the A-class society. It was unrealistic for a horrific crime to occur in the rich art or theatre world of educated Britain. The Intuitionists view was the opposite saying that the intelligentsia of society is more interesting to the audience. Detective work was one of The Realists main focuses and the sleuth was usually a policeman or private detective. They both, however, used police procedure. A private detective may be used in a realist film so that he doesn’t have to be bound by police procedure. The Intuitionists argued that police procedure and scientific methods put the reader at a disadvantage because the average reader didn’t know these aspects and so were kept out of the loop. The Realists being realists want to portray reality and say that their method would solve any Intuitionists crime much more efficiently.
Unlike The Intuitionists texts, where the detective work was based allot on the exercise of the mind, The Realist’s detective focused allot on physical evidence. They paid close attention to these physical evidences such as footprints, moved furniture, bullet holes and other forensic or measurable evidences in order to reconstruct the crime accurately. The solution often lies on the detective’s ability to reconstruct the crime and knowing where suspects are at particular times. This meant that The Realist sleuth had to hear alibis and expose the lies of false alibis. The criminal often set up red herrings for the sleuth to follow or leave a trail to frame another - the criminal, therefore, had to be ingenious.
Hard-Boiled
American ‘hard-boiled’ Crime Fiction was influenced by The Realist Crime Fiction sub-genre and holds many of its conventions as well as its own. Also termed ‘Black mask’ fiction, hard-boiled detective films were born in the 1920s after world war one and there are still, like many other sub-genres of Crime Fiction, texts written in the same formula today. The most recognised characteristic of hard-boiled fiction is the tough-talking, streetwise, risk taking, cynical detective who lives societies edges and solved crafty murder cases. The sleuth lived by a strict code of honour and was isolated from society. The sleuth was often an ex-police officer whom had had a divorce or some other profound loss. The sleuth was unique to hard-boiled texts and was in constant danger.
Rapid action replaced the Golden Age and Early Crime Fiction conventions of elaborate puzzles and deductions of pure genius. The hard-boiled school has much more violence present in the texts and the detective is sometimes subject to this violence. The detective therefore needs to have a degree of self-defence in the form of either a gun or even martial arts. He needs this to show the reason why he could survive in the hostile world. The sleuth uses risk taking techniques to discover who the murder is but a risk is a risk and hence they don’t always turn out to well.
The sleuth does not live by their society but by their moral code. They are upright in this field and care not for society’s games and their bomb-of-a-car, long term relationship absence and run down house is metaphorical for this conflicting relationship. The sleuth’s moral code means they will never give up in the face of danger and never give up on his/her client. The detectives had these characteristics because of the setting they were in. The Hard-boiled detective novels reflected the reality of crime in America at that time. They presented a tough world and a tough detective. The detective often drinks and smokes heavily to show the realism of their character and their circumstances.
Contemporary
The atmosphere of Contemporary Crime Fiction can also be quite dark, but may not be set in the mean streets of New York City. Instead the Contemporary Crime Fiction composer sets his/her plot in places such as hospitals, schools and even laboratories. These places with great detail and each place isn’t foreign to the reader. They are not set in a closed setting such as in Golden Age texts. Contemporary Crime Fiction is reflective of the recent, remembered world and reflective of today.
Action and violence are a commonality within all Contemporary Crime Fiction works. Often the violence is very graphic and includes the killing of an innocent person. Another convention commonly used in Contemporary works is the alluding to past crimes or injustices to heighten the horrors of the crime and of the atmosphere itself. The atmosphere can never be ‘cozy’ or slow paced in today’s society. Contemporary Crime Fiction relies on the use of suspense more than any other sub-genre before it. It is much faster paced and, for the first time ever, female writers dominate Crime fiction. Since the 1970s the amount of women readers of Crime Fiction started to climb along with the writers. It is now at the point where the pendulum has swung and is due for a turn back to reach equilibrium.
Agatha Christie, like most of the Intuitionist writers of her time, used the same set of stereotyped characters time and time again. She did this to show that human nature was the same wherever one went and that it was just calibrated differently within different personalities. Today is different. Contemporary composers strive to present believable non-stereotyped characters. The police, therefore, make mistakes, as they are only human. Unrealistic settings of the Golden Age are also frowned upon today and the detective has a new part to play.
No longer is the detective a lone ranger who fights injustice to balance society. The crime stopper of today’s fictional universe is part of a team. Their lack of power to use force and other techniques prevent the detectives from solving the crime effectively. To use what they have they use technology and scientific advances that are very effective.
