Detective Fiction and the Myth of the Urban Truth
01 Dec 2012-Vol. 4, Iss: 2, pp 23-41
TL;DR: In this article, the authors trace the evolution of the notion of the absolute truth in modern detective narration, and trace its evolution through the analysis of key works of modern Detective narration to better understand how the city contributes to the representation of the enduring myth of absolute truth as well as our epistemological certainties.
Abstract: Although the notion of an absolute Truth is conceived in post-structuralist times as a myth generated by logocentric thought, it remains at the core of a highly popular narrative genre such as detective fiction. From its inception, this specific iteration of an epistemologically unquestionable Truth depends greatly upon the urban paradigm, which generates and shapes the character of the detective at the same time as it reflects cultural hegemony, and tracing its evolution through the analysis of key works of modern detective narration will allow us to better comprehend how the city contributes to the representation of the enduring myth of the absolute Truth as well as of our epistemological certainties.
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TL;DR: In "A Study in Scarlet", Holmes and Watson's first mystery, the pair are summoned to a south London house where they find a dead man whose contorted face is a twisted mask of horror as discussed by the authors.
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18 Jul 2010
TL;DR: The Sign of Four as mentioned in this paper is both a detective story and an imperial romance, and it gradually uncovers a tale of treachery and human greed in the early 19th century.
Abstract: Arthur Conan Doyle’s second Sherlock Holmes novel is both a detective story and an imperial romance. Ostensibly the story of Mary Morstan, a beautiful young woman enlisting the help of Holmes to find her vanished father and solve the mystery of her receipt of a perfect pearl on the same date each year, it gradually uncovers a tale of treachery and human greed. The action audaciously ranges from penal settlements on the Andaman Islands to the suburban comfort of South London, and from the opium-fuelled violence of Agra Fort during the Indian ‘Mutiny’ to the cocaine-induced contemplation of Holmes’ own Baker Street.
This Broadview Edition places Doyle’s tale in the cultural, political, and social contexts of late nineteenth-century colonialism and imperialism. The appendices provide a wealth of relevant extracts from hard-to-find sources, including official reports, memoirs, newspaper editorials, and anthropological studies.
“In this erudite and provocative edition, Shafquat Towheed offers fans of both Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle an intricate account of the intertextual histories at the heart of The Sign of Four. Arguing for the inextricability of its colonial plots with its work as detective fiction, Towheed builds a persuasive case for The Sign of Four as Mutiny fiction, positioning it as pivotal to the imperial career of ‘British’ fiction per se. Readers of this edition will be gripped by the colonial pathways Towheed reveals, the politics of citation he uncovers, and the entanglement of home and empire he tracks in the making of the novel. This is postcolonial interpretation at its very best.”
(Antoinette Burton, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
233 citations