Tearing the Heart Out of Secrets
Inside and outside a murder mystery
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3661691 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jill Lebihan (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2001 |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 287-295 |
| Publication date | 2001-11-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Gender Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0958-9236 • E-ISSN: 1465-3869 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/09589230120086494 |
| OpenAlex | W2015242527 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 3 |
This paper is concerned with the narrative operations of the murder mystery and their effect on the reader's process of identification. I examine feminist appropriations of the terms 'identification', 'incorporation' and 'the grotesque', and consider the effect of these processes on the subjectivity of the reader of murder mysteries. My case study is of Minette Walter's popular novel The Ice House , and I demonstrate how the failure of the detectives to solve the mystery is due to their inability to identify with a female killer. I conclude that the reader of this popular murder mystery is forced into an unhappy identification with the textually incorporated writer, and is therefore unable to come to terms with the secret at the heart of the novel. This in turn results in the cyclical consumption of the popular thriller
Art · Epistemology · Literature · Narrative · Sociology · Subjectivity · Crime and Detective Fiction Studies · Gothic Literature and Media Analysis · History · Narrative Theory and Analysis · Philosophy
| Highly cited | No |
|---|