Crime Fiction- Tom Stoppard Essay
...ically, plays a central role for the audience. It is the audience who must draw conclusions from the body, not the characters. It is in this way that Stoppard uses crime fiction conventions to establish a base on which his parody is displayed to the audience. The motifs and conventions of crime fiction are enhanced in an ironic depiction of stereotypical images, ergo the use of satire allows for Stoppard to subvert the principles of the British Mystery School crime fiction. Stoppard deliberately utilizes predictable stereotypes within The Real Inspector Hound in comical subversion of those characters found in typical crime fiction, such as the classical example of Agatha Christy novels. His play contains; the middle-class hypocrite Birdboot; the occupational second string called moon; the aristocratic frivolous females who are both seduced (Felicity) and seducer (Cynthia); the third man in a love triangle (Simon); the reliable yet apathetic police officer and the returned missing husband (Albert). Indeed, characters are often placed in absurd situations to fit their stereotypes, for example, when Cynthia arrives form the tennis court in a cocktail dress. Stoppard has ingeniously subverted the conventions of the genre not only to the dissolution of the purpose of life, but to the comical advantage of the audience as well. Indeed, Tom Stoppard further enhances this technique by trapping the relative characters to cliché vocabulary, placing them in their stereotypical roles. Stoppard phrases the characters throughout the entire play with perfunctory and cliché expressions with the double intention of comic relief and subversion of conventions. The sincere delivery of these comic expressions confirms how trapped the characters are within the “artificial patterns of their conventions”. Take for example, the character of Mrs. Drudge. Her character deliberately captures the distinguishing annoyance found within the servants of British Mystery School. She represents the epitome of her stereotype; exemplified through exaggerated politeness and humility and a presence at all crucial moments in the mystery. However, the responder establishes the idea that it is the stage directions, rather than the language used that subvert the conventions of this particular stereotype. Indeed, Mrs. Drudge is mentioned more in stage directions than in the lines of the actual play itself. Stoppard is further enhancing the cliché positioning of the servant who appears to be in the presence of important clues in the crime scene. For example “Mrs. Drudge…. resumes her cleaning. She does not see the body. Quite fortuitously, her view of the body is always blocked…” and “ “Mrs. Drudge, whose discovery of the body has been imminent, now- by way of tiding the room- slides the couch overt he corpse, hiding it completely.” Ironically, her name also subverts the conventions of British Mystery School, typifying the status she holds in the aristocratic domain of Muldoon Manor. This deliberate irony of trapped conventions is not intended to go amiss; rather it expresses the motif behind the Theatre Of The Absurd. That is, the upsetting of traditional conventions and disturbance of the audience through the creation of an irrational world reflecting our disintegrating society. It is relevant to intervene here and consider the satire in Stoppard’s choice of Crime fiction with the Theatre Of the Absurd. Ironic that Crime Fiction was never interpreted as great literature but was subverted and parodied for its conventions in relation to human nature- that itself is a distortion of our values. In relation to these social values, distortion occurs again within the inversion of the characters. Whilst Stoppard exaggerates the positioning of the characters, they are also externally changing. It is representational of Stoppard writing a play and subverting it, playing with the conventions of the audience. Through breaking the formula, Stoppard questions why characters can’t be multiple and what defines a persona as an individual. This technique is used extensively in the play The Real Inspector Hound; indeed, it can be approached as satirizing Crime Fiction on two specific levels. Firstly, it challenges the classical conventions of crime fiction that allow for a sense of comfort and predictability. The breaking of the set formula in a volatile manner leaves the audience bewildered. Stoppard has confronted the traditional convention...