CRIME, DETECTION, AND THE RESTORATION OF ORDER: A STUDY IN WILKIE COLLINS'S THE MOONSTONE

Yıl 2004, Sayı: 16, 105 - 120, 16.08.2014

Arpine Mızıkyan

Öz

According to Julian Symons, a detective story "should present a problem, and the problem should be solved by an amateur or professional detective through processes of deduction" (Symons, p.13). Logical deduction lies at the heart of the detective story where coincidence or supernatural events have no place. Every detail of a detective's thought process should be demonstrated. A detective story is primarily concerned with a crime and its solution which is achieved by a detective who employs rational and scientific investigation, and ultimately restores the order. Thus, detective fiction is on the side of law and order. As Julian Symons points out "the criminal act occurs; many or one is / suspected; the detective works on some clues; the truth of the criminal act is revealed; and the wrongdoing is, inevitably, punished" (Symons, pp.14-15). Generally speaking, the detective novel begins with the presence or suggestion
of crime, and proceeds with its explanation, and ends with its punishment. Crime disrupts the peace and security of the established order. Moreover, it leads to the emergence of social unrest and instability. On the social level, then, what the detective story offers to its readers is a world whose inhabitants demand the existence and prevalence of a social order. Hence, those who try to disturb that order are discovered and punished. The reader along with a detective or a person functioning like a detective, learns how the crime has been committed and who the criminal is. The detective who is endowed with remarkable powers of observation and deduction solves the problems presented to him, and reinstalls the order. 

Anahtar Kelimeler

CRIME, DETECTION, RESTORATION

Kaynakça

• Collins, Wilkie, The Moonstone. Penguin Books Ltd .. London. 1994.
• Ergun. Zeynep, "Ordered Restored: A Study of Wilkie Coll ins's 11ie Moonstone", Litera, Say1 12. Edebiyat Fakiiltesi Bas1mevi, istanbul, 1998.
• Pykett, Lyn, The Sensation Novel from the Woman in White to The Moonstone, Northcote House Publishers Ltd .. UK, 1994.
• Symons, Julian, From the Detective Story to the Crime Novel: A History, Pan Books Ltd., London, 1994.
• Kayman, A. Martin, From Bow Street to Baker Street, Mystery, Detection and Narrative, SL. Martin's Press. New York, 1992.