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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?£4.39
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A* AQA ENGLISH LITERATURE B CRIME WRITING UNSEEN EXTRACT Explore the significance of elements of crime writing in this extract?
Received 22/25 marks A*
Unseen Extract [25 Marker] (beginning of the
second Strike novel)
Unseen Extract [25 Marker] (beginning of the second Strike novel)
The hardboiled detective – “large unshaven man trapping through the darkness of
predawn”.
The journalists arrival reflecting the commercialisation of crime.
The setting.
The extract presents the beginning of a piece of crime fiction where we appear to follow the
focalising detective figure of Comoran Strike through the dirty alleyways and corners of London
before he takes a seat in a café in the early morning awaiting to make a private discovery, public
in inviting the journalist to come. The crime elements of the central hard-boiled detective figure,
the setting, and the commercialisation of crimes are all 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 large unshaven man” is described as “tramping through the darkness of predawn” the
reader begins to string the images of the darkened morning with looming detective figure
walking through the streets of London to the genre of Hard-Boiled crime fiction. This was an
element of crime popularised in the aftermath of WWII where the previously Golden Age
writings settings of sunny quintessentially English villages, became replaced with a more dignity
dilapidated urban streets rife with crime where natural order seemed disrupted and doomed to
never be restored. This can be seen in the beginning phone call between the ex-army veteran
and reporter where the crude and colloquial language used; “Itʼs six oʼclock in the fucking
morning!”, “Itʼs half past, but if you want what Iʼve got, youʼll need to come and get it”. The
reporter appears afraid of the central private investigator abruptly demanding; “How dʼyou
know where I live?” when Strike states that he is near his “place”. This is an aspect of crime only
common once again in the Hard-Boiled genre where the golden age detectives were viewed as
gentlemanly figures who the characters trusted and confided in, for example Poirot in Christieʼs
novels who refers to himself as “Papa Poirot” numerous times throughout the novels. On the
other hand, Strikeʼs “slight unevenness in his gait” which “became more pronounced as he
walked” makes him appear a character who has seen and experienced somethings in his life
best left unsaid. He links more to Raymond Chandlers detective figures who were seen as more
cold and cynical in approach to their careers.
This strong sense of the hard boiled which is set up through the central figure is emphasised
further in the locale of the extract. The “monolithic” “winter darkness” alongside descriptions of
“animal flesh” which paints the gruesome images of “carcasses” and leads the focaliser to
reflect on whether there is a “God of carcasses”, which adds a depressing tone to the extract
where the focus on death in the dying landscape of winter alongside the dead animals
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