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A Counter-History of Crime FictionDetection before Detection

A Counter-History of Crime Fiction: Detection before Detection [Those critics who take an encyclopaedic approach to crime fiction customarily cite among the sources of the genre two episodes from Genesis in the first book of the Bible, which can be read as the religious foundation myth of Western society. It is because of a crime — although in religious terms it is the ‘original sin’ — that Adam and Eve abandon the condition of perfection they enjoyed in the Garden of Eden in order to enter the time of history. Stealing the fruit from the tree of knowledge triggers an inevitable detection, and the same occurs when, in another episode, Cain is marked and exiled to the East of Eden for having killed his brother. The more crimes the first humans commit, the more punishment they receive and the further they spread across the face of the earth. Incidentally, this cyclic plot has an uncanny analogy with the mechanism of retribution which led to the creation of distant European colonies through the transportation of criminals. What I find particularly meaningful in these ancient stories, however, is the fact that evildoers are doomed right from the beginning since the primal detective and judge is God himself. In other words the construction of Western morals pivots on the idea of omniscience and the certainty of punishment.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Counter-History of Crime FictionDetection before Detection

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Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan UK
Copyright
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2007
ISBN
978-0-230-59462-3
Pages
17 –40
DOI
10.1057/9780230234536_2
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[Those critics who take an encyclopaedic approach to crime fiction customarily cite among the sources of the genre two episodes from Genesis in the first book of the Bible, which can be read as the religious foundation myth of Western society. It is because of a crime — although in religious terms it is the ‘original sin’ — that Adam and Eve abandon the condition of perfection they enjoyed in the Garden of Eden in order to enter the time of history. Stealing the fruit from the tree of knowledge triggers an inevitable detection, and the same occurs when, in another episode, Cain is marked and exiled to the East of Eden for having killed his brother. The more crimes the first humans commit, the more punishment they receive and the further they spread across the face of the earth. Incidentally, this cyclic plot has an uncanny analogy with the mechanism of retribution which led to the creation of distant European colonies through the transportation of criminals. What I find particularly meaningful in these ancient stories, however, is the fact that evildoers are doomed right from the beginning since the primal detective and judge is God himself. In other words the construction of Western morals pivots on the idea of omniscience and the certainty of punishment.]

Published: Oct 9, 2015

Keywords: Typical Crime; Divine Providence; Crime Literature; Detective Fiction; Crime Fiction

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