TMORA- Contexts, Comedy concepts and Authorial Methods

Question 1

What are the elements of crime writing in TMORA?

Answer 1

• Setting in place and time
• The murder / /discovery of the body
• The creation of the detective and his sidekick
• The methods of the detective and the police force
• The re-construction of the crime
• The structure of the text, from crisis to order
• The role of the narrator
• Motivation and remorse
• Judgement and punishment
• The role of confession

Question 2

What is Van Dine’s rules of crime fiction (1928) - Culprit?

Answer 2

• The culprit must turn out to be a person who has played a more or less prominent part in the story

Question 3

What is Van Dine’s rules of crime fiction (1928) - Detective?

Answer 3

• The detective himself or one of the official investigators should never turn out to be the culprit.

Question 4

What is Van Dine’s rules of crime fiction (1928) - Murder?

Answer 4

• The method of murder and the means of detecting it must be rational and scientific.

Question 5

What were Knox’s rules (1928) for a detective story?

Answer 5

The true essence of a detective story - I am thinking for the moment of those which occupy a whole volume; we will come to the short story later on - is that in it the action takes place before the story begins.

Question 6

What were Knox’s rules (1928) for victories in a detective story?

Answer 6

Honourable victory can be achieved only if the clues were ‘fair’.

Question 7

What were Knox’s rules (1928) surrounding the sidekick of the detective?

Answer 7

The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal any thoughts which pass through his mind.

Question 8

What was the Golden Age of crime fiction?

Answer 8

The detective fiction of the 1920’s and 1930’s, featuring English country houses and villages, and their upper-class inhabitants.

Question 9

Who was Agatha Christie?

Answer 9

Best-selling novelist of all time. Wrote 66 murder mysteries. Began her first Poirot story during WW1.

Question 10

What is the circular narrative?

Answer 10

A story whose end places readers back at the beginning.

Question 11

What are red herrings?

Answer 11

False clues to make the reader take the wrong path.

Question 12

What is problem to resolution?

Answer 12

The satisfying structural arrangement of a detective novel.

Question 13

What are stock characters?

Answer 13

Characters that re-appear in lots of crime novels, such as the retired army major.

Question 14

What is the unreliable narrator?

Answer 14

The person telling the story, who we assume we can rely on, withholds information or lies.

Question 15

What is metafiction?

Answer 15

Fiction about fiction (e.g. a detective story that mentions detective stories).

Question 16

What is a symbol?

Answer 16

An object or act that represents a bigger idea (e.g. Mah Jong represents hiding things from one another)

Question 17

What is idyllic?

Answer 17

Extremely happy and peaceful (setting)