| We
present here an essay by Catherine Thompson on women invading a perfectly
male playing field: the hard-boiled novel and its perennial PI.
Marlowe and Spade will have now to give some room on their mean alleys for the parade of the new tough dames. You
will find how and why in Miss Thompson's text wherein
the full text
of the essay can be downloaded as a separate file-
|
| FROM MARLOWE
TO MILLHONE :
THE FEMINIZATION OF THE HARD-BOILED DETECTIVE As the title suggests, this is a study of the changes that have been wrought in hard-boiled detective fiction by the influence of women, both writers and protagonists. Drawing on the work of theorists such as Alice Jardine and Laura Mulvey, the author examines some of the socio-economic elements from which the genre sprang, the place of women in those early novels, and the re-vision which began in the late 1970s. This thesis yields a new understanding of the genre. It also constitutes an academic study of representative novels by four of the most popular female authors of detective ficiton working in the hard-boiled mode today, and of their female protagonists: Marcia Muller and her Sharon Mc Cone, Sara paretsky and her V.I. Warsharwsy, Sue Grafton and her Kinsey Millhone, Karen Kijewski and her Kat Colorado. Catherine Thompson, 1997 |
|
