| dc.description.abstract | The thesis aims to explore the plotting of six mystery- and crime-thrillers. The texts I have chosen are classics from an increasingly prestigious era of our modern narrative history; the novels are hardboiled and the films are classic noirs. They are arranged in pairs - a literary text and its filmic adaptation - each pair representing the plotting of a different narrative perspective, but looking out on the same grim phenomenon: murder. I discuss plotting as the particular text s realisation of genre properties. I do this because I think that the vernacular use of plot which spans centuries reflects people s need for narrative and their pursuit of the particular types of narratives they like. I understand the application of plot to plot-summaries or paraphrases as derived from the use of these summaries as facilitators of discussion and evaluation of narrative progress. Clearly, we pursue the narratives we desire with the help of genre cues, and we discuss them because we want to know what they do and evaluate the way in which they endeavour to meet their obligation to us who pursue them. I thus approach the use of genre-tags or cues as the sender s prospects to the receiver in a narrative contract that is closed as the receiver assumes his role with the buying of a theatre ticket, a book or by slipping under the blankets all ears. My approach to genres is, accordingly, Aristotelian (teleological). Every formula text will, however, contain elements that go beyond the formulaic purpose. These narrative strands may be particular to the author or the period in which the narrative was produced. I introduce the terms 'meta-plot' and 'meta-plotting' as tags to these textual features. The main concern of chapter 1 is with finding a way to speak about plotting that does not merely reflect my personal narrative experience and priorities. In chapters 2-4 I discuss texts that represent three different kinds of thrillers, distinguished by their characteristic use of narrative perspective: first, the hardboiled mystery thriller, secondly, the crime thriller and finally the pure thriller. Chapter 2 discusses Raymond Chandler s Farewell, My Lovely (1940) and Edward Dmytryk s Murder, My Sweet (1944). The third chapter treats James M. Cain s Double Indemnity (1936) and Billy Wilder s 1944 adaptation by the same name. Whit Masterson s Badge of Evil (1956) is discussed in chapter four in connection with Orson Welles s Touch of Evil (1958)- the obscure novel s notorious adaptation. Concluding, I will argue that these popular narratives and the sub-categories as such experiment with and implicate our notions of identity. Thus, in addition to providing the frameworks and dynamic of the good story and reinforcing conventional outlooks, our fascination with narrative formulas derives from our need to map, and place ourselves in, new areas of experience through the variations and permutations of plotting. | nor |