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Mandy Meng
Professor Haas
WR 39B
Jul 27, 2014
Why Is the Detective Genre Attractive?
The detective genre invites readers want to follow the story through not showing all the
details, causes the reader to play along to solve the puzzle. This is one of the elements that makes
the detective genre attractive to readers. In literary scholar George Doves book, The Reader and
The Detective Story, he includes a chapter entitled The Different Story that explains why the
detective genre is different from other genresdetective stories are a special case of reading
that is governed by special rules and is shaped by specialized formulas (back cover). Dove
received the Edgar Allan Poe Special Award from the Mystery Writers of America for another
book about the detective genre, The Police Procedural and he is therefore a well-known scholar
who specializes in the genre. What Dove claims is different about the detective genre is that the
reader cannot be excluded from the definition of the tale of detectionthe role of the readers is
different (1). The readers are a part of the story, and they can see the process and take part; they
are not spectators. For example, Watson in the Sherlock Holmes canon of stories is a
representative of the readershe asks questions that the readers have and helps the readers see
what Sherlock Holmes (the author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) wants him (the readers) to see.
Because of the enduring popularity of the detective genre, literary scholars like Timothy John
Binyon, Jerome Delamater, and Leroy Panek have frequently made arguments about what makes
the genre different from other genres; they agree that the detective genre is unique because of the
role it gives to readers.
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For example, The Man With The Twisted Lips is a short story about the case of a
woman who finds her husband has disappeared. Holmes discovers that the husband has not
disappeared, but has been disguising himself and doesn't want his family to know. In the
beginning scene, readers are surprised to find that Holmes is in an opium den, in disguise.
Watson asks, What on earth are you doing in the den?(3) This is an example of how Watson
helps readers to participate in the story and asks questions to Holmes. The readers are not simply
reading a story but seeing everything and every move.
Dove restates the words of another scholar, R. Austin Freeman, that the detective novel is
an exhibition of mental gymnastics, in which the reader is invited to take part and an
argument conducted under the guise of fiction (2). Using Sherlock Holmes as an example, it is
not hard to feel the readers try to solve the mysteries while reading, and this is an intellectual
genre. In The Sign of Four, Holmes asks Watson what he thinks of the small footprints. Not
only Watson but also readers would think together that women and children have small
footprints. This is spontaneous, and this experience is the readers cannot get from other genres.
Readers can have a felling of standing by the detectives and the crime scenes and they can look
for evidences. In other genres, the readers are reading or watching the stories happen and don't
need to think about what is going to happen next. In another book, written by literary scholar Dr.
Leroy Panek who is an English professor at McDaniel College and George N. Dove Award
winner, An Introduction to the Detective Story, Panek includes a chapter entitled Beginnings
that describes detective story fans can unearth examples of rigorous thinking, the use of
evidence, and the hero as the unraveller of the antagonist's artifice in virtually every epoch or
clime (5). He means that detective story readers look for evidence while they read. They think
like detectives. Compared to other genres that the readers are only witnesses of things happening,
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detective story let readers participate in, just like Dove considers the readers watching the crimes
with the detective and trying to solve the problems.
Besides the role of readers is different in the detective genre, the characters are also
dramatic that is attractive to readers. "Murder Will Out": The Detective in Fiction, published by
Oxford University Press, is written by the English scholar and crime writer Timothy John
Binyon (18 Feb 1936 7 Oct 2004). Binyon pointed out that Doyle wanted to create a pure
detective with no emotions at first, but he added some human traits later in his writing (10). The
sense of conflict of Sherlock Holmes makes the character more touchable to the readershe is
not perfect, and he is interesting. He can admire a worthy adversary, as he admires Irene Adler
for outwitting him in A Scandal in Bohemia. However, he never let emotions to influence his
judges. Holmess knowledge of literature as non-existent, but at the same time, he is soon
quoting Goethe and Flaubert, quizzing Watson on his knowledge of Carlyle, and recommending
to him a book he describes as one of the most remarkable ever penned, Winwood Reades
Martyrdom of Man (10). The perfect imperfections and conflictions of the character make the
detective charming and solid, the character is three-dimensional and real. Dr. Leroy Lad Panek
states in another chapter of his book which is entitled Doyle that building Holmes on Poes
model makes Holmes the Bi-Part Soul and the essential duality of genius and is not human
nature (11), which means Doyle borrowed Poes inclusions of transcendence and created
Holmes. However, Panek later argues that Doyle immediately regretted this connection of
Holmes with the inexplicable, ineffable, transcendent realm. He drew back from Poe's concept of
genius, and in the second novel, The Sign of the Four, Doyle associated Holmes with the
Decadents and made him a cocaine addict (11). Being a cocaine addict is one of the dramatic
characteristics of Holmes. Holmes always plays like the good guy. As a consulting detective,
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he helps the police to solve crime cases. He doesn't cause troubles to the society even when he is
bored. Taking drugs feels like something that Holmes would not do, but this is just the other side
of him that he needs drugs to excite him. He is not perfect, just like Binyon mentions that
Holmes has human traits (10). Holmes has his weakness, and because of those not-so-perfect
points, Holmes is attractive and touchable to readers. (deleted some paragraphs)
In Theory and Practice of Classic Detective Fiction, the writers maintain that a unique
formal pattern of detective story is that the plot is double, as the story is first narrated as it
appears to the bewildered bystanders who observe the crime and are to some extent threatened
by it but who cannot arrive at its solution (1). Just like Willard Huntington Wright, author of the
Philo Vance series, describes the detective genre as a complicated and extended puzzle cast in
fictional form" (AMS 35). The stories are not easy to solve. The evidence are not fully
performed to readers, and only with the help of the detective can solve the cases. In Sherlock
Holmes, this characteristic is very apparent. Watson is a bystander, but he cannot arrive at the
solution. However, because Watsons feeling is the same as the readers, it calls a resonance
between Watson and the readers and pushes them to follow Holmes thoughts and keep reading.
In conclusion, the role of the readers is different, and readers can participate and try to
solve the mystery, the adorable and conflict settings of the detective, and the double plot in
detective stories all make detective genre different from others and become attractive. At the
same time, it gives the readers a different kind of reading experience. Conan Doyle makes the
detective genre becomes popular. As the author of Sherlock Holmes, Doyles name will always
be carved on the history stone of the detective genre.


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Work Cited

Binyon, T.J. "Murder Will Out": The Detective in Fiction. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1989. 9-12. Print.

Delamater, Jerome and Ruth Prigozy, eds. Theory and Practice of Classic Detective Fiction. New
York: Praeger, 1997

Dove, G. The Different Story: The Reader and the Detective Story. Bowling Green State
University Popular Press. Bowling Green, OH, 1997.

Doyle, Arthur Conan. Sherlock Holmes. THE SIGN OF FOUR (annotated) (Kindle Locations
1466-1468). . Kindle Edition.

Doyle, Arthur Conan. "Adventure 1: Silver Blaze." The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. Lit2Go
Edition. 1894. Web.

Doyle, Arthur Conan. "Adventure 11: The Final Problem." The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.
Lit2Go Edition. 1894. Web.

Panek, L. Beginnings: An Introduction to the Detective Story in z. Bowling Green State
University Popular Press, 1987.

Panek, L. Doyle: An Introduction to the Detective Story in z. Bowling Green State University
Popular Press, 1987.

Wright, W.H. "The Great Detective Stories." The art of the mystery story. 1927