The Semiotic Background of the Ineffective Investigation in the Weird Detective Story
The classical detective story is based on a teleological certainty offered by the narrative. In these stories, the detective successfully solves the crime, and the lawful order is restored in an assuring manner, so the closure of the narrative structure does not allow for an open ending in ontolo...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | deu |
| Published: |
Scientia Publishing House
2023-11-01
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| Series: | Acta Universitatis Sapientiae: Philologica |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://acta.sapientia.ro/content/docs/10-269992.pdf |
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| Summary: | The classical detective story is based on a teleological certainty
offered by the narrative. In these stories, the detective successfully solves the
crime, and the lawful order is restored in an assuring manner, so the closure
of the narrative structure does not allow for an open ending in ontological
terms. However, weird fiction and its most recent form, new weird, have
a different approach to the teleological givens prescribed by the classical
detective story (whodunit). The weird investigation is paradigmatically
open-ended, and the detective most often fails to solve the case. The
argument develops a distinction between two basic semiotic structures that
characterize crime fiction. While all crime fiction is set in an environment
that is based on simulation, the classical detective can revert the simulated
semiotic structure into signs based on representation, thus the interpretation
of the signs results in solving the crime. The weird and new weird stories,
on the other hand, defy this representational logic, which is demonstrated
by Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s weird fiction and Neil Gaiman’s new weird
short story entitled “A Study in Emerald.” |
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| ISSN: | 2067-5151 2068-2956 |