Hardboiled Crime Fiction - Essay Example

Hardboiled Crime Fiction This is a subgenre of detective fiction developed in 1920 and it is distinctively American although some representatives and followers are also found in England. This subgenre is mostly found in the west but the writers are both whites and the African Americans in their bid to exercise their literary prowess. In hardboiled fiction, the contents are almost similar to action but there is a small difference in their setting and the language style and the speed with which everything happens (Jalova 16). They heroes in hardball crime fiction are always very big, strong witty and cunning and these makes the reader to be very addicted in knowing whatever happens next in their series which makes their stories very interesting. Action stories are full of short and fast dialogues accompanied with thrilling action while hardboiled story never includes action in its settings. Movie drive, fast scenes, short dialogues, and the main hero usually using his wit to making the drama quite interesting characterize Hardboiled movies (Mccann 43). The main hero in hardboiled movies is usually tough and likes to use violence to achieve his goals and they are beaten since they are not afraid of violence. They always met attractive women and talk of sex but they rarely have an affair with them hence portraying them as very sly and cunning people who rarely fall into trap (Booth 11). Some of them always have very attractive women with them but what stands out is that they are rarely attached to the women who in most cases tries to outwit them but they often fails. Hardball stories are not only full of violence but also full of organized crime composed of gangsters who take control of the streets and thus harassing people and making the lives of such people to be miserable. The violence witnessed in these hardboiled cases are always in the attempt by the superhero to achieve his almost impossible mission and this may encourage the reader of these stories. The main hero is more often a private investigator who rarely follows the rules of detection but act with his own rules and intelligence making most of their decisions uncommon. They mostly encounter the criminal accidentally and immediately decide to pursue them without express authority from anybody and in most cases they are very successful. The task of a private investigator is not only to use logic and reason but also to monitor the wrong doings, which may arise in the society and deal with them carefully. The first hardboiled stories were printed on cheap magazines and poor quality paper with lurid and garish cover designed to cover the attention of the reader because initially people were not much interested in them. Black is considered the first publisher of detection theories and the birth place of hardboiled detection stories even though it published both hardball detection and action. Carrol John Daly is considered the founder of hardboiled detective fiction and could be considered the author who surpassed the genre of western and cowboy and mixed it up with the toughness of a private detective hence making his stories quite interesting. One of his famous stories he is remembered for is the Knits of the Open palm, which he introduced in 1923 by introducing main guy Race Williams a prototype of a hard boiled detective. Daniel Hammett is also considered for setting the foundation for hardboiled type of fiction when he unveiled the fiction based on urban setting, routine police corruption characterized by neutral narrative method. In his short stories, he used the anonymous detectives from continental detective agency to gather essential feature, which he would later use to make some very interesting crime fiction, which impressed many people (Haddon 53) Raymond chandler is also among the leading authors of hardboiled detective fiction when he incorporated a lot of style and philosophy in his works by improving the style created by Hammet adding deep philosophical features to the story. Among his famous works is the Trouble Is My Business where he portrays a tough type of private detective who was initially a gambler. Ross McDonald is a pseudonym of Kenneth Miller who created his detective hero Lew Archer a tough person who accidentally finds corpses and is beaten loads of time in his interesting story. Another famous detective was Robert Leslie who is a controversial author of detective stories with his work being Spicy Detective where Dan Tuner, a tough, rough and rude to both women and men as the main person in that movie. Burnet is also credited for creating a new style of or point of view form the way people perceive stories by incorporating criminals and gangsters to be his main heroes especially in his short story “Travelling light”. African American authors of detective fiction helped develop the hardboiled detective novel by bringing many changes in its genre; this is because they wrote books that were to serve their ethic groups by solving their political problems. Among the black Americans was Walter Mosley’s Devil in Blues which is a good example of hardboiled African American work which addresses the implication of an African American detective with his numerous works. The black Americans were originally exploited as cheap laborers and were in most cases exploited hence they become very poor and this made them quite unhappy with their lifestyle. The works of African American was largely motivated by racism, which was negatively affecting them, and hence they needed a way in which they can also express their superiority (Bradley 56). This inequality in wealth caused a lot of conflicts, which could also be addressed through literature in their attempt to air their views, and make their voices be heard (Duncan 54). This is the reason most of their hardboiled detective were always black so that they could portray a message to the whites that they also posses the charisma and cunningness in most of the hardboiled fiction. The beginning of twentieth century witnessed many conflicts, which were generated by hate crimes where most of the people were killed illegally but soliciting less investigation especially if committed by the whites. Treating social issues like race in the hardboiled novel is something that was not created in classic detective novels and it was raised in the form of a clash between the whites and blacks generating a lot of unease within the literary world (Jezawi 4). Most black American writers including Walter Mosley, Barbara Neely and Chester Himes treated the race issue as a theme in their writings generating a lot of heat because they presented crime because of class conflict. In most of Mosley books, he depicts black community that struggles for identity and he presented his books by crating black heroes in positive roles attracting many following across the races (Jezawi 4). A clear depiction of African American hardboiled fiction is contained in Mosley’s book Devel in Blue Dresss where a story is told of a black man who is fired from his job but later finds himself working for the white man as a detective. He cannot avoid this job because of financial problems associated with him and he took this job doing it so good that in the end she becomes the hero in the story. These writes perfected the art of making the detectives black and make their blackness an asset in successfully executing an investigation informing the reader that the blacks are equally superior in their undertakings and thus they should not be undermined. Unlike the British detectives, the American hardboiled is a hardened man who does not work with the police because he does not trust them and the police also hate him for his extreme success (Jezawi 6). The community perception of hardball works as one with a great influence in the society due to the messages portrayed in those series (Gardiner 77). They are also viewed realistic forms of crime fiction since they portray whatever happens in the society with a lot care and this sends the message to the whole world. When the American blacks wrote about crime fiction in their books, they were communicating the message to the whites that they are equally strong in their and can maturely handle what other races can handle (Jezawi 12). What remains to be true is that others have also viewed hardboiled crime fiction to be portraying a negative message to the society due to the nature of their languages. They are also lawlessness in their act and this is likely to send a negative picture to the community when they begin to emulate such characters they read in books since they are portrayed to be heroes and heroines. This can be of negative impact especially to young school going children who may not fully understand that this are just but fiction books and thus should not be emulated. Another very negative effect of such fiction is the effect on crime, which is suspected to have risen due to the influence of such artistic works. Most of the crime scene works portray these hardboiled actors to be very strong and very successful in their dealings with the police and other people in the society (Jalova 33). They are always depicted to be able to carry out a very dangerous mission even in front of armed policemen and this portrays a negative picture to young boys who at times to emulate these actions. It is highly believed that there is an increase in organized crime due to the well organization read in most of these hardball crime related books and related literature. The hardboiled crime is also believed to influence community social structure because the setting is always in such a way that it depicts the image of other social settings (Bird 32). The leadership and talent is also largely influenced by these hardboiled crime fiction which affects leadership and management of a particular management system especially the police. The police force may feel looked down upon since they are always portrayed by such hardboiled crime fiction to be very weak in their organization. This is likely to demoralize the police in their works and as such can make them act very ruthlessly in dealing with criminals instead of handling them professionally (Raymond 14). Works Cited Bird, Paul. Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction as a Vehicle of Social Commentary in Raymond Chandlers The Big Sleep and Walter Mosleys DevilIn A Blue Dress. Journal of the Faculty of Economics, KGU, Vol.21, No.1, September 2011 pp. 105-114. Booth, Martin. The Doctor, the Detective and Arthur Conan Doyle: A Biography of Arthur Conan Doyle. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1997. Print. Bradley, Alan. Ms Holmes of Baker Street: The Truth About Sherlock. Alberta: University of Alberta Press. 2004. Print. Chandler, Raymond. Introduction Trouble In My Business. New York City: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Duncan, Alistair . The Norwood Author: Arthur Conan Doyle and the Norwood Years (1891–1894). London: MX Publishing. 2010. Print. Duncan, Alistair. Close to Holmes: A Look at the Connections Between Historical London, Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. London: MX Publishing. 2009. Print. Gardiner, W. Lambert. The Whole Art of Detection. New York City: Black Cat Press 2011. Print. Haddon, Mark. The curious incident of the dog in the night time. London: Bloomsbury Publishing 2012. Print. Jalova, Zuzana. Reflections of Society and Era in Hardboiled Detection Fiction. 2007. Web. 8 August 2013 Jezawi, Hanan. The Black Persona in American Hard-boiled Detective Fiction: A Study of Mosleys Devil in a Blue Dress. Jordan Journal of Modern Languages and Literature Vol. 4 No.1, 2012, pp. 35-50. McCann, Sean. The Hardboiled Novel. n.d. Web. 8 August 2013 Read More