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Summary A* AQA ENGLISH LITERATURE B CRIME WRITING UNSEEN EXTRACT Explore the significance of elements of crime writing in this extract?
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Elements of Crime Writing
Institution
AQA
A* AQA ENGLISH LITERATURE B CRIME WRITING UNSEEN EXTRACT Explore the significance of elements of crime writing in this extract?
Received 24/25 marks A*
The Trial For Murder By Charles Dickens –
Unseen Extract (last page)
The Trial For Murder By Charles Dickens – Unseen Extract (last page)
Monotony of the setting and focus on time.
The depictions of the legal system as a labyrinth set to only justify itself.
Idea that criminals are condemned before they even are sentenced – in the last words of
the man and his belief he did not have a fair trial.
The extract tells the tale of the final days of a manʼs trial where he awaits the judges decisions
on his fate with time slowing and the setting becoming more and more claustrophobic around
him. Through this the crime elements of the impending labyrinths of the legal system,
reflections of a crime onto nature, and even the ideas of injustice within justice are explored. In
this essay I will therefore discuss the significance of this extract in relation to the genre of crime
writing as a whole.
As the extract begins the monotony of the homodiegetic narrators circumstance becomes
immediately clear with the repetitive listing and lexical field of negatives and boredom creating
a droning sense within the language alongside within the actual story. “Monotony” is directly
repeated twice alongside the word “same” which is repeated throughout the extract
emphasising that as the general feel in the extract with the tactile, sensory, and auditory
imagery in the; “same tones of question and answer rising to the roof of the court, the same
scratching of the Judges pen, the same lights kindled at the same hour” all adding to the sense
of doom surrounding the mans trial. Similarities can be drawn to Franz Kafkaʼs work in ‘The
Trialʼ which similarly reflects the legal systems impenetrable tangle and whimsical abuse of its
victims where time almost begins to stop for the protagonists. And in the extract the focus on
time as the narrator states that “all the wearisome monotony which made me feel as if I had
been Foreman of the Jury for a vase period of time” suggests this similar element of time
stopping as the ‘murdered manʼ awaits the juries decision and the jury themselves reflect on
their decisions. Through this mundane and blurry depiction of the legal system, the extract
lacks the abrupt harsh emotions or arguments common to other courtroom drama crime texts
with the verdict of “Guilty” being the only moment that the drowsiness of the narrative breaks
free as through the characters have awoken from their languor.
Through this negative presentation of the courtroom, the extract can be seen as a commentary
on a system which does not appear to desire to help the victims or the criminal in redemption or
atonement, but to perpetuate itself with the manʼs final statement being “My Lord I knew I was a
doomed man when the Foreman of my Jury came into my box… I knew he would never let me
off” suggesting that the system does not attempt to allow penitence for the criminals but simply
enjoys carrying out what would have been defined as justice to them. The man appears to have
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