A* AQA ENGLISH LITERATURE B CRIME WRITING UNSEEN EXTRACT Explore the significance of elements of crime writing in this extract?
Comes from Dorothy L Sayers Have His Carcase (1932) – Chapter 1
Received 23/25 marks A*
Unseen Extract – Dorothy L Sayers: Have His
Carcase (1932) – Chapter 1
Unseen Extract – Dorothy L Sayers: Have His Carcase (1932) – Chapter 1
Contrasting response to finding a corpse.
The description of the corpse.
Metafictional elements.
The extract presents the discovery of a dead body after the focalising character and assumed
detective figure Harriet ironically reflects that with some “luck, heʼd be a corpse, and I should
get my name in the papers”. The extract explores the crime elements of the various responses
to crime, the nature of crime writing itself, and the graphic and detailed descriptions of dead
bodies. In this essay I will therefore discuss the importance of this extract in relation to the
genre of crime fiction as a whole.
As the extract begins a conflict of interpretation immediately is established where the
juxtaposing horror of finding a corpse is contrasted with Harrietʼs excitement towards the event.
It is originally unclear whether the body is truly dead or alive being referenced to in vague terms
with blurry imagery describing how the man “lay uncomfortably bunched up on the seaward
edge of the rock” causing the reader to become intrigued alongside Harriet on the life status of
the man. Yet, the excitement transforms to concern as Harriet reflects on whether the man
could be in a “fit or a faint” touching his shoulder to move him revealing the “dead weight” of
the man marking his position as the novels corpse which Harriet and reader were awaiting. The
short sentences which are strung together create an excitable and pacing atmosphere adding
tension to the build-up of the corpses reveal is emphasised by the dramatic irony of Harrietʼs
reflection that; “But these things never happen to authors. Itʼs always some placid labourer or
night-watchman who finds corpses…” with the ellipses ending the line reflecting Harrietʼs desire
for the corpse to truly be a corpse.
Yet, this hope does seem to be as satisfactory as it was initially presented to be. As the life
status of the body is identified the language immediately shifts to an almost scientific
commentary which would be found in an autopsy report, with the “throat they cut ear to ear”
and “great vessels of the neck” which “had been severed to the house-bone” creating a sense
of revulsion far from the initial erratic scramble to determine if “it was a corpse”. The victim is
also directly named as ‘Mr Samuel Weare of Lyons Innʼ giving a flashforward and prolepsis into
the future breaking the previously ordered and structured narrative reflecting this break in
Harrietʼs mind also suggesting that the discovery of the corpse was not all as uplifting as she
thought it would be. The olfactory imagery describing the “horrid halts of blood, which
streamed to her nostrils under the blazing sun” alongside the visceral synthescial imagery of
the “how butchery the severed vessels” looked creates the impression of a slaughter occurring.
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