The Classical Detective Formula Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

The Classical Detective Formula - Essay Example A classical detective formula starts with a situation, consisting of unsolved crime, and heads towards the discovery of the mystery of the identity and the motivating factors behind the criminal engaging in such acts. The situation also involve determining the means through which the crime was committed, the purpose for which the crime was committed and the real evidence that is available to associate the criminals with the act (Knight, 1980). The other important element is the pattern of action, which creates the story of detective investigation of the crime and the solutions, followed by the characters and their relationships as the other element of this detective story. Under the character and their relationships, the main characters include the criminal who perpetrates the criminal acts, the victim, on whom the criminal act was committed, the detective who investigates the case and the third parties who are affected by the crime, but cannot address the crime on their own. The rel ationship among the four characters is an important element of the formula. The setting, the final element of the detective formula, relates to the delimited environment in which the criminal act is committed, which is secluded from the rest of the world. There are various reasons that accounts for the rise of the classical detective formula in the early twentieth century. Reasoning and logic are some of the factors that accounts for the rise of the classical detective formula in the early twentieth century. Most of the writers of this duration struggled to harmonize the traditional and custom way of thinking of the people, with the perceived incompatibility of modernity and enchantment (Saler, 2003). Modernity was associated with chaos and disorder, thus the detective formula sought to create a new way of thinking, by portraying modernity as an aspect that could be embraced and harmonized with traditional perspectives. The traditional thinking and reasoning leaned towards man tryin g to understand and explain the nature of the universe as it is, seeking to create theories based on reality and experimental testing to prove such reasoning. On the other hand, the classical detective formula introduced a way of logical thinking that would serve to solve the perceived problems through fictious thinking, an aspect that gained fame due to the realism aligned with the fictional writing (Frank, 1976). The incorporation of analytic mind in a fictious writing served to make such works of art more acceptable to the people during such an age, when all the writing was about theories and laws that sought to explain why things in the universe are the way they are. The myth of reasoning, that the universe could be comprehensible resulted to the planning of detective story telling, by deducing the basics of fiction and limiting logic (Knight, 1980). Realism is another factor that accounts for the rise of the classical detective formula. The writers of the detective story served to associate their stories and the characters with aspects of reality and natural phenomena that were there at that age. This has seen the characters involved in such stories being regarded as real characters (Tillotson, 1969). The ability of the detective stories to integrate fiction with real happenings of the day served to popularize this genre. The classical detec