Question – “Crime Fiction Focuses On A Quest – It Is A Quest That We Too, Search For Through Or Fears And Desires”. Discuss This Statement In Relation To The Novel “The Skull Beneath The Skin”.

Question – “Crime Fiction Focuses On A Quest – It Is A Quest That We Too, Search For Through Or Fears And Desires”. Discuss This Statement In Relation To The Novel “The Skull Beneath The Skin”.

One of Crime Fiction’s main pivotal elements is the purpose of the text, what drives the detective on the quest for an attainable goal to find the answer and the truth, but most importantly to bring the perpetrator to justice. This journey that is undertaken by the conventional sleuth, is also taken by the audience to satisfy their demand for justice, precipitated by their fear that in the end, justice will not be served. Their forebodings towards the actuality that justice may not be served, shatters the audiences illusions of a safe world prompting a detectives quest for Law and Order to restore it. This notion of a quest is evident in P.D James’s “The Skull beneath the Skin” in Cordelia’s quest for obtaining the truth about Clarissa’s death threats, and eventual brutal murder.   In the text, the quest is underlined by James’ subversion of genres, Narrative Style, Setting, Characterisation and her general incorporation of the conventions of Crime Fiction

Crime Fiction is a distinct genre with a framework of conventions. Genre and its conventions exist due to the universal desire of man where order must forego chaos, it provides an escape from reality into an almost predictable world. Contextual influences make the genre of Crime Fiction flexible – it reshapes itself to suit the demands of its context and through this, sub genres develop. P.D James’s “The Skull beneath the Skin” as a successful Crime Fiction text, uses the traditional conventions of Crime Fiction to satisfy the audience, but also adopt them to suit the cultural and social values operating at the time. James offers a contemporary twist on the traditional ‘cosy-school’ detective fiction. Through the subversion of genres, James has shifted and broadened the parameters of Crime Fiction highlighting specific values and ideals by incorporating elements of other sub-genres such as hard-boiled, Intuitionist, Realist and Police Procedural. For example, James makes the point that...