Detective Fiction

Take Home Test #3

Due Monday, April 10 at 10:00 a.m.

 

 

As you respond to the following questions, stick to the word limits.  I will take off if you exceed them.  Your purpose is not to recopy your notebook in essay form.  Don’t tell me everything you know.  Just answer the question.  Of course, the more directly and efficiently you write, the more you will be able to say.

 

Please type your responses in Microsoft Word and e-mail them to me as attachments.

 

 

Please respond to the following question in no more than 300 words. (20 points)

 

 

Discuss some differences between Sue Grafton’s “H” is for Homicide and Sarah Paretsky’s Guardian Angel.  You may consider writing style, plot construction, character values and behavior and/or theme.  Of course you may consider anything else that seems relevant.

 

 

 

Please respond to the following questions in no more than 300 words. (30 points)

 

 

Discuss some of the similarities and differences you have noted between the male detective novelists and the female novelists we have read so far.  Once again, feel free to consider

Writing style, plot construction, character design and theme.  Of course you may discuss anything else that seems relevant.

 

Please respond to the following questions in no more than 200 words. (20 points)

 

 

Raymond Chandler once said, “No really good detective ever gets married.”  And yet readers have often argued that V.I. Warshawski and Kinsey Millhone should remarry.  What is your opinion and why?

 

 

 

 

Please respond to the following questions in no more than 200 words. (20 points)

 

 

In class, we have discussed the relationship of the case to the detective’s life.  Some people think too much emphasis on the detective’s life detracts from the mystery of the case.  Others think the opposite.  What do you think and why?