Dashiell Hammett's fiction and detective pulps
generally, offered the reader a chance to participate in
vicarious power, by giving them a sense of the profession of
detection, both in and out of the stories. It was the
realism of the detective figure that allowed the audience to
relate to him. What the detective offers the reader is an
intensely powerful performance of masculinity that is at
once ordinary in physicality and intelligence and
extraordinary in the power it affords him. This power comes
from his professional abilities, which allow him to
transcend physical and class limitations. The detective
story allows the reader to identify with the detective, and
the detective pulps both in the stories and in their other
sections offer the reader lessons in the profession of
detection. Through this identification and education there
is a kind of transference of the detective's power to the
reader. The detective story offers the reader a chance to
be powerful in a corrupt world, but since the detective is
never able to fully rid the world of corruption, the story
also offers the reader an opportunity to escape the corrupt
world by putting the story down (essentially locating the
corruption of the world within the pulp itself). In this
escape, the reader inevitably feels happiness and
contentment because his real world (though not as exciting
or powerful as the detective's) is safe. / Graduation date: 2002
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/28765 |
| Date | 13 September 2001 |
| Creators | Winsor, Shiloh |
| Contributors | Oriard, Michael V. |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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