It strikes me somewhere after the 300th time I've read the synopsis for an upcoming detective novel, that almost every one of the blurbs starts off by describing our main protagonist as retiring or withdrawing from the line of duty.
Off they go to some remote, seaside or rural area to get away from it all, to relax, to leave the stress and horror of their jobs far behind. Or, they've often been forcibly and quietly retired from duty after unorthodox or unprofessional conduct.
Off they go to some remote, seaside or rural area to get away from it all, to relax, to leave the stress and horror of their jobs far behind. Or, they've often been forcibly and quietly retired from duty after unorthodox or unprofessional conduct.
Of course, they have but to arrive in said rural/briny region for a body to turn up or a person to go missing, and so begins the standard detective-killer runaround until all is revealed at the end and we pat ourselves on the back for having known who it was all along.
But why is it that we should be so keen to have our heroes be unwilling ones? We seem to be uncomfortable with the idea of a detective straightforwardly doing their job. When normally working, our detective is sanctioned by the institution to which they are attached - usually in some way an official representative of society engaged to solve crimes. Indeed, the detective might be said to fulfill a crucially ordering function, restoring truth to society's narrative and eliminating its threatening elements.
Why, then, do we insist on them not wanting to fulfill this function? Rather to fall into it, unwillingly, if inevitably?
One of our earlier detectives in fiction was Dickens' Mr. Bucket from Bleak House, and critics credit him with playing a reformist role that restores justice to English society in the way lawyers (like the dread Tulkinghorn) cannot. In this sense then, the detective emerges as a anti-hero figure who we trust in a position of power precisely because he does not seek it.
Of course, there must be many, notable exceptions to the phenomenon I am describing, and what's more, this popular tendency to 'anti' our heroes before they become them could merely be the result of the exigencies of a better plot. Still, I know I prefer my politicians un-power-hungry (utopian as that may seem), why not my detectives too?
But why is it that we should be so keen to have our heroes be unwilling ones? We seem to be uncomfortable with the idea of a detective straightforwardly doing their job. When normally working, our detective is sanctioned by the institution to which they are attached - usually in some way an official representative of society engaged to solve crimes. Indeed, the detective might be said to fulfill a crucially ordering function, restoring truth to society's narrative and eliminating its threatening elements.
Why, then, do we insist on them not wanting to fulfill this function? Rather to fall into it, unwillingly, if inevitably?
One of our earlier detectives in fiction was Dickens' Mr. Bucket from Bleak House, and critics credit him with playing a reformist role that restores justice to English society in the way lawyers (like the dread Tulkinghorn) cannot. In this sense then, the detective emerges as a anti-hero figure who we trust in a position of power precisely because he does not seek it.
Of course, there must be many, notable exceptions to the phenomenon I am describing, and what's more, this popular tendency to 'anti' our heroes before they become them could merely be the result of the exigencies of a better plot. Still, I know I prefer my politicians un-power-hungry (utopian as that may seem), why not my detectives too?
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