Bleak House as Sensation
Charles Dickens
Similarly, Dickens in Bleak House (1852-1853) also has a murder, circumstantial evidence pointing to one party, and an arrest of the actual culprit. Like other writers in The Early Whodunit tradition, Dickens lays considerable emphasis on the gathering of physical evidence against suspects. Dickens combines this with a look at a police detective, another major strand of early crime writing. The one "Waters" story that is easily available today, "Murder Under the Microscope", also fits in with this approach. Like Dickens, "Waters" emphasizes both police procedure, and physical evidence against suspects. "Waters" has the full building up of motives, and the detailed description and investigation of the crime scene, found in Pelham, as well. Nether Dickens nor "Waters" at all tips their hand early on as to the actual identity of the guilty party; although modern readers will have no difficulty picking out the hidden culprit in "Waters"' tale. This is an improvement over Pelham, where the actual killer is the only other obvious suspect in the story.
Both Dickens' "Three Detective Anecdotes" (1853), and Bleak House (1852-1853) show his depiction of the police arresting subjects in sexual terms. Inspector Bucket's arrest of the woman criminal in Bleak House is compared to Jupiter's kidnap of Io in the form of a cloud, which also preserves the fog metaphor which runs through the book. There are also elements of voyeurism in both works, with the police spying on criminals. Dickens further stirs up the pot by suggesting that arrest gives lower class policemen power over upper class people, something that also must have excited him, and his readers. Despite Dickens' great popularity, his contemporaries do not pick up on these themes.
Similarly, Dickens in Bleak House (1852-1853) also has a murder, circumstantial evidence pointing to one party, and an arrest of the actual culprit. Like other writers in The Early Whodunit tradition, Dickens lays considerable emphasis on the gathering of physical evidence against suspects. Dickens combines this with a look at a police detective, another major strand of early crime writing. The one "Waters" story that is easily available today, "Murder Under the Microscope", also fits in with this approach. Like Dickens, "Waters" emphasizes both police procedure, and physical evidence against suspects. "Waters" has the full building up of motives, and the detailed description and investigation of the crime scene, found in Pelham, as well. Nether Dickens nor "Waters" at all tips their hand early on as to the actual identity of the guilty party; although modern readers will have no difficulty picking out the hidden culprit in "Waters"' tale. This is an improvement over Pelham, where the actual killer is the only other obvious suspect in the story.
Both Dickens' "Three Detective Anecdotes" (1853), and Bleak House (1852-1853) show his depiction of the police arresting subjects in sexual terms. Inspector Bucket's arrest of the woman criminal in Bleak House is compared to Jupiter's kidnap of Io in the form of a cloud, which also preserves the fog metaphor which runs through the book. There are also elements of voyeurism in both works, with the police spying on criminals. Dickens further stirs up the pot by suggesting that arrest gives lower class policemen power over upper class people, something that also must have excited him, and his readers. Despite Dickens' great popularity, his contemporaries do not pick up on these themes.
posted by RadioMensa | 7:24 PM
1 Comments:
I think it is fair to that Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone and at least some of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories contain this aspect from Bleak House that Police men or private detectives derive pleasure from making the upper middlerclass or the upperclas uncomfortable.
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