Hey, Im soughta up creek without a paddle atm. We're doin an assignment where we have to pretty much research an aspect of crime fiction and I've stupidly chosen the Denouement. Im having an amazingly hard time finding resourceful sites...I know what a denouement is but being an assignment I need to talk in depth about it and its uses/history and I really cant find anything. If anyone knows any good resources or has information it would be hugely appreciated...
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Denouement Convention...HELP! (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter gamindsoc
- Start date
*Chucks a paddle*
Ah the good ol' denouement...
I suppose you could start off with the denouement within the Classical genre of Crime Fiction... where there was that whole 'reason and logic over emotion', the denouement showed that yes, reason and emotion was the way that these crimes could be solved. The detective would explain how they figured out the crime and what it all meant so that the reader would go "ah yes, what a jolly smart man that detective is", which appealed greatly to the Victorian ausdience.
That whole "gathering of suspects" in more of the cozy school denouements shows how the crime fiction genre had begun to be appropriated into an aesthetic puzzle and being made somewhat entertaining.
When you shift to the hard boiled crime fiction genre, the denouement is usually a violent confrontation between the detective and the criminal. It is not always the case here that justice is done, and that reflects the Modernist aspect of the hard boiled genre, where there was a greater sense of realism as opposed to the "superiority" of classic detectives.
And then you go on and on to the other genres and you look at them too.
I'd suggest that you look for articles by John G. Cawelti - i'm not sure if you can find them on the web, but have a try.
All of the above is off the top of my head from the essays I've been reading on the topic. Don't ask me for specific resources.
And if you want you can ignore this - I'm doing the HSC this year too; so it isn't the same as something that a post HSC student might write.
Anyway. Thought of my day.
Ah the good ol' denouement...
I suppose you could start off with the denouement within the Classical genre of Crime Fiction... where there was that whole 'reason and logic over emotion', the denouement showed that yes, reason and emotion was the way that these crimes could be solved. The detective would explain how they figured out the crime and what it all meant so that the reader would go "ah yes, what a jolly smart man that detective is", which appealed greatly to the Victorian ausdience.
That whole "gathering of suspects" in more of the cozy school denouements shows how the crime fiction genre had begun to be appropriated into an aesthetic puzzle and being made somewhat entertaining.
When you shift to the hard boiled crime fiction genre, the denouement is usually a violent confrontation between the detective and the criminal. It is not always the case here that justice is done, and that reflects the Modernist aspect of the hard boiled genre, where there was a greater sense of realism as opposed to the "superiority" of classic detectives.
And then you go on and on to the other genres and you look at them too.
I'd suggest that you look for articles by John G. Cawelti - i'm not sure if you can find them on the web, but have a try.
All of the above is off the top of my head from the essays I've been reading on the topic. Don't ask me for specific resources.
And if you want you can ignore this - I'm doing the HSC this year too; so it isn't the same as something that a post HSC student might write.
Anyway. Thought of my day.
Stryfe
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On Dénouement:
If we start with a basic definition, nouement literally means knotting. This is the building of causality which creates a chain of events (plot). Often in crime fiction, a doubling up of crime and investigation causes a more complex knotting and therefore a more intricate relationship between cause and effect in the plot. When we reach the dénouement, the unknotting or untangling of the web occurs. At this point Aristotle in his Poetics presents us with two alternatives which bring the narrative to a unifying conclusion: peripeteia (ironic reversal) or anagnorisis (recognition/discovery). These terms describe the moment when the hero (or anti-hero) passes from ignorance to knowledge.
As we can start to see, this moment is crucial to crime fiction, when the detective solves the case and in doing so restores order from disorder. All the fragmentary pieces of evidence and clues thrown the reader's way throughout the plot add up to a reassuring and meaningful picture.
Now dénouement can be particularly emphasised as a generic element of crime fiction. There is not a more meaningul point in a crime fiction plot than the uknotting. This is where the responder can (as tending to do with cf) relate cause with effect and solve for themselves, through the narrative centre's (protagonist) point of view, the investigation. The enduring popularity of crime fiction rests on the premise that, through examining our own repressed instincts of human nature, combined with the allure of mystery, we can personally restore our internal order from disorder. In other words, passing from ignorance to knowledge and recognising the value of attaining wisdom. Dénouement then, marks the point at which this occurs and as such remains inextrocable as an element or convention of the genre.
For historical links, look to revenge tragedy and Seneca's 5 act model as well as Gamini Salgado. Keeping the above in mind, use that broad structure to analyse the cf texts you have been covering in class, which must include related texts of your own choosing. How has the text used the dénouement in crime fiction? and/or how have they modified or subverted the traditional use of the dénouement? Applying this notion to any cf text will guarantee you a host of examples to work with in your treatment of the topic.
All the best ^+)
If we start with a basic definition, nouement literally means knotting. This is the building of causality which creates a chain of events (plot). Often in crime fiction, a doubling up of crime and investigation causes a more complex knotting and therefore a more intricate relationship between cause and effect in the plot. When we reach the dénouement, the unknotting or untangling of the web occurs. At this point Aristotle in his Poetics presents us with two alternatives which bring the narrative to a unifying conclusion: peripeteia (ironic reversal) or anagnorisis (recognition/discovery). These terms describe the moment when the hero (or anti-hero) passes from ignorance to knowledge.
As we can start to see, this moment is crucial to crime fiction, when the detective solves the case and in doing so restores order from disorder. All the fragmentary pieces of evidence and clues thrown the reader's way throughout the plot add up to a reassuring and meaningful picture.
Now dénouement can be particularly emphasised as a generic element of crime fiction. There is not a more meaningul point in a crime fiction plot than the uknotting. This is where the responder can (as tending to do with cf) relate cause with effect and solve for themselves, through the narrative centre's (protagonist) point of view, the investigation. The enduring popularity of crime fiction rests on the premise that, through examining our own repressed instincts of human nature, combined with the allure of mystery, we can personally restore our internal order from disorder. In other words, passing from ignorance to knowledge and recognising the value of attaining wisdom. Dénouement then, marks the point at which this occurs and as such remains inextrocable as an element or convention of the genre.
For historical links, look to revenge tragedy and Seneca's 5 act model as well as Gamini Salgado. Keeping the above in mind, use that broad structure to analyse the cf texts you have been covering in class, which must include related texts of your own choosing. How has the text used the dénouement in crime fiction? and/or how have they modified or subverted the traditional use of the dénouement? Applying this notion to any cf text will guarantee you a host of examples to work with in your treatment of the topic.
All the best ^+)
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Along with that incredibly detailed analysis, I'd also like to point out the ability for the Denouement to reveal the values in which the text was produced - particuarly, one example would be the emphasis P.D. James, despite working within the clue puzzle school, places on legal loopholes > which allows Ambrose to, in essence, dominate rather then Cordelia and accounts for his annoying confidence.Stryfe said: