Transcript Tzvetan Todorov  Tzvetan Todorov discusses genre and then uses his discussion of genre to discuss literature and how genre creates literature.

Tzvetan Todorov
 Tzvetan Todorov discusses genre and then uses his
discussion of genre to discuss literature and how genre
creates literature
CLASSICAL PERIOD
 PAST- NO GENRES ; NO VALUE
 IF SO WITH ONLY A PENALISING TENDENCY
 HAD SET CODES
AUTHOR
S/WOA
METER/THE
ME
RHYTHM/P
LOT
MORAL/CH
ARACTER
A
NIL
PARTIAL
NIL
B
X
--
X
C
---
X
X
ROMANTIC PERIOD
ROMANTICIST refused totally to accept any genre- so genre was not
developed
LATER
 a Tendency to review using genre
 typology meant description of WOA(Work of art)
 not satisfactory
Difficulties
Genre referred to analysis of structure of WOA
 First

to explore measurable elements
 Second

describes structure
[ classical period did not have measurable elements solid
but had only abstract logics]
 Attributing specific character to any aesthetic norm
 Every WOA creates two genres
 One it transgresses
 One it creates
Eg. ‘The charter house’- transgresses French novel norms
 Bears similarity to Stendhalian novel
“Stendhal consistently links various colours to specific
themes, attitudes, or moods. Red, associated with
passion and revolutionary impulses, and black,
suggesting despair and death, are the most important
in his rich palette of colours. Green, a kind of lesser
black, may signal agitation or disorder.”

There is one type of WOA belonging to own genre
 That is a detective novel
 Has its own norms
 To develop norms is to distract it
 In other words, development is writing literature
 Whodunit –detective novel ( who done it)
 Conforms rigidly to genre
Eg. No orchids for Miss Blandish
 Incarnation of genre and not a transcendence[
perfection/superior
 [ earlier no genres to describe popular literature- if
there had been there would not have been any popular
literature-all one and the same]
Aesthetic aspects of literature
 Now two types
 High art & popular art
 Elements of measurement are different
 Todorov presents three kinds of detective fiction:
whodunit, thriller, and suspense.
 Todorov says “that between two such different forms
there has developed a third, which combines their
properties” referring to the whodunit and the thriller
creating to make the suspense
whodunit
thriller
suspense
Classic detective fiction-Whodunit novel
 Whodunit novel
 Originated and attained its peak during world wars
 “contains not one but two stories: the story of the crime and the story of
the investigation
Two Murders
First murder
Second murder
(Criminal) Crime
(Detective)
investigation
First story ----leading to -------------------------------------second story
 ‘what really happened

Part I
how the reader comes to know
Part II
 A small green index-card on which is typed:
Odel, Margaret
184. W. Seventy First Street.
Murder: Strangled about
11 p.m. Apartment robbed. Jewels stolen.
found by
Amy Gibson, maid.
[S.S.Van Dine, The ‘Canary’ Murder]
Body
 Part –II-Second story
 Has a special status in Whodunit
 Has a geometric structure
 Characters do not act; they learn
 Nothing happens to them
 As a rule of the genre, detectives are immune to any
danger
 Readers learn- a slow apprenticeship -Clue after clue;
lead after lead
 Detective writes his experiences as a book His friend informs to others
 Detectives states how this book has been written –
bears literary nature while the first story bears
nothing- just a statement of murder or robbery
 author does not disclose the murderer/not even
imagines a character[c devoid of literary nature]
 In 2nd part the real story of the book lies
Examples
 Agatha Christie’ Murder on the Orient Express
Twelve suspects
Twelve chapters
Twelve interrogations
A prologue [discovery of crime
An epilogue [discovery of killer]
 The two definitions define two aspects also
Russian Formalists isolated into fable (story) and
subject (plot) [ not satisfying story]
‘Story’ is what has happened in ones life
‘Plot’ is what the author presents the story to us.
No two notions but two aspects of one story
1. A murdered B-story
2. How it is narrated? What are literary devices used?
Possibility of paradox
First part- story of an absence
 Narrator can not transmit the conversations nor
describe the actions of between characters implicitly
Second part
 Words are heard
 actions observed
 Status is just an excessive one having no importance
in itself
 A mediator between reader and the first story of crime
 First story in absence is significant and real second
story much present yet insignificant and unreal
 Some publishers suppress details and let the secret in
the last page as letter/envelop e.g.. Judge’s verdict
 Literary devices employed in first story -that the
Author cannot explain
 Two types


Temporal inversions (sequential )
Individual points of view
The tenor/sense of it is determined by the person who transmits
it
No observation exists with out an observer
Author cannot be an omniscient [present every where]
Second story
 All the devices are justified here
 Care to be taken 2nd story not be opaque
 Not casting useless shadow on the first
Style must be neutral and plain and also imperceptible[
not detectable]
The Thriller










Fuses both the 1st and 2nd stories
Suppresses the 1st
Vitalizes the second
crime Anterior[first/front] is not disclosed before
narrative
Narrative [2nd] coincides with the action
It is not presented as a memoir [account/record]
No point is reached where the narrator comprehends
the past
No idea if he achieves any end
Prospection takes the place of retrospection [
No imagination ; no mystery; no suspense
 Yet readers are interested in two forms of it
 Curiosity- proceeds from effect [corpse and clues]to
cause [culprit and his motive]
 Suspense- cause [donnes/ gangsters preparing heist]
to effect [corpse and clues]
Interest is sustained to what would happen to detectivehe may be hurt or killed- detective takes risks
One story with two stories blended
The thriller need not perform specific transformation in
order to appear on the scene
It did not follow any structure –
THRILLER
CURIOSITY
SUSPENSE
proceeds from
Effect
to
Cause
CAUSE- Corpse and Clue
EFFECT- Culprit and his motive
Cause to
Effect
 No method of presentation for thriller of later years
 Focused on milieu it represented; specific characters
with special behaviour and in its theme
 Milieu is violent- violence/immortality is as much as
noble feelings[beatings, killings etc.
 No mystery even if it did not hold central function
unlike whodunit[mystery was the centre in
whodeunit]
 Earlier thrillers included the element of mystery
 Eg. Dashiel Hammet & Raymond chandler
 Gradually thriller turned to be a genre
 encapsulating
 Danger
 Pursuit
 Combat
 bearing a tendency towards
 Marvelous
 Exotic
Resembling
 Travel narrative
 Science fiction
Thriller is different from adventurous story
Different from even detective novel
The difference in the milieu and behaviour are the cause to
make thriller a genre
Thriller as a genre according to Van
Dine
 One detective; one criminal; one victim [corpse]
 Culprit must not be professional criminal; must not be






detective; must kill for personal reasons
No love
Culprit must have certain importance in life; (no chamber
maid or a butler]
Everything must be rational- no fantasy
No description
No psychological analysis
Homology of story
 ‘author: reader= criminal: detective.’
 Banal (trivial , common place) situations must be avoided
suspence
 Combination of whodunit & thriller
 Originated along with thriller
 describes the milieu like thriller
Composition is like that of whodunit
 Has two sub types
Suspence
Story of vulnerable detective
Story of the suspect –asdetective
• Detective looses his immunity;
beaten up
• Integrated into the universe of other
characters
• Gets rid of conventional milieu of
professional crime
• Return to the personal crime of the
whodunit
• Crime is conducted in the first page;
all hands point out to main
character
• H must prove his innocence- same
time detective & culprit to police;
victim to murderers
 Evolution of these forms are in stages
 All three forms exist now unlike other
genres
 Detective novel tried to disenthrall from old
convictions /genre to establish new code
 If we trace peculiar detective novel it need
not efface the existing one; instead can
create new one bearing no semblance to any
of the existing form.
 It is constituted of complex properties
logically not similar to earlier forms