WISE: Detective Fiction

What do detective stories reveal about the structure of society? What can mystery writers like Edgar Allan Poe, Agatha Christie, Chester Himes, and Patricia Highsmith teach us about the structure of literature? On the one hand, detectives have special access to the social worlds represented in fiction. As we'll see, solving a crime often means charting a course through the many sub-worlds of urban life, from penthouse to flophouse. The private eye can enter communities that would otherwise be closed to outsiders, social groups set apart by differences like race, class, gender, or sexuality. On the other hand, detective fiction also dramatizes the act of reading itself as a social relationship, at once a contract and a game between author and reader. In exchange for our time and attention, we expect the author to play fair, provide clues, and give us a logically sound and satisfying ending. This course uses detective fiction as an introduction to a structuralist approach to narrative, and as an occasion to discuss the big questions: the relationship between self and society and the pleasures and responsibilities therein.