abstract: For over a century, writings in the Law & Literature genre have been largely restricted to works concerning lawyers and courtrooms. This despite early preeminent Law& Literature scholars' assertions that the genre should incorporate any writing that examines the intersection of law, crime, morality, and society. For over a half-century, Detroit novelist Elmore Leonard has been producing well-written, introspective novels about criminals, violence, and society's need to both understand and condemn these things, all under the broad, oft-marginalized genre of crime and detective fiction. This paper pairs the work of Elmore Leonard, using his successful novel Out of Sight as a stylistic framework, with the Law & Literature genre. After a dissection of the true definition of a Law & Literature and detective fiction, as well as an excavation of underlying themes and imports of Out of Sight, it is found that Law & Literature scholars need to be more inclusive of crime novels like Leonard's. And, given the characteristics of both genres, Leonard's novels are more appropriately classified as Law & Literature rather than detective fiction. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. English 2012
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:asu.edu/item:14621 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Contributors | Weier, Nicholas (Author), Clarke, Deborah (Advisor), Lussier, Mark (Committee member), Holbo, Christine (Committee member), Arizona State University (Publisher) |
| Source Sets | Arizona State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Masters Thesis |
| Format | 50 pages |
| Rights | http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/, All Rights Reserved |
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