Patrick Mooney, TA
Eng 193, Prof. Newfield
6 November 2012
Necessity is not in that sense a type of content, but rather the inexorable form of events; it is therefore a narrative category in the enlarged sense of some properly narrative political unconscious […]. Conceived in this sense, History is what hurts, it is what refuses desire and sets inexorable limits to individual as well as collective praxis, which its
ruses
turn into grisly and ironic reversals of their overt intention.
-Frederic Jameson, The Political Unconscious, p. 102. (See this quote with more context.)
| Detective fiction (classically, and/or in general) |
Noir (in particular) |
|---|---|
| The law is basically just, at least in most circumstances, and justice is served in the end through the unravelling of the mystery (there is a "happy" ending) | There is no "real" justice, but at best a temporary evening of the scales, or partial redress for grievances; the unravelling of the mystery does not rectify the social order |
| Corruption is partial, an aberration in the normal operation of a basically fair governmental system | the system is all-powerful, more or less entirely corrupt, and impossible (or basically impossible) to change |
| Detective follows a method modeled on hard science | Detective's method based on hunch and/or social-scientific method |
| The detective works more or less cooperatively with formal legal/power structures | The detective mistrusts the legal/judicial system and its concomitant power structures:
|
| The detective is disinterested | The detective is disinterested |
| The detective is smarter than the police | The police are corrupt, and the detective is a more basically honest character (as well as, perhaps, being smarter) |
| The crime under consideration is an interesting puzzle | The detective has a personal concern for the people and/or circumstances involved in the investigation |
| The detective operates more or less independently (but may have a sidekick) | The detective operates independently as much as possible, because s/he is an alienated loner |
| Specific, detailed observations, and inferences based on those observations | Observation/inference structure |
| Detective has a basically suspicious attitude toward evidence | Detective exhibits a suspicious attitude toward evidence and political power (a suspicious attitude is a hallmark of a sophisticated, perceptive thinker) |
| Detective is open-minded, opposed to "conventional wisdom" | Detective is open-minded, exhibits unconventional ability to see past the surface of explanations that cloak real power structures. |
| proto-femme fatale | femme fatale |
| cloaks its politics in a pose of being non-political | makes its political positions explicit |
| The detective is a Jeffersonian individualist | |
| Detective is detatched for reasons of scientific rigor | Detective is hard-boiled, and detached because of trauma |
| Blondes | |
| The war brought home | |
| Psychology of rationalist thought | Psychology of irrational/pre-conscious loss, often related to fragmented personality |