Title: Demographic factors contributing to and limiting the end results of different hard-boiled detectives: white male, white female, and black male
Department: English
Description: This project will explore the social factors involved and available to different types of hard-boiled detectives. For example, if they work with or against the law, their ability to survive a fight, social injustices driving their work, and their ultimate successes. The base for the hard-boiled narrative will be the white Sam Spade in Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon (1930). From there the project will highlight what is maintained and changed to fit a female and black male character, specifically social factors have changed, and which have been retained based on the demographic of the detective. Sara Paretsky's character V.I. Warshawski in Bitter Medicine (1987) and Chester Himes' characters Grave Digger Jones and Coffin Ed in Cotton Comes to Harlem (1964), will represent a female and black male adaption, respectively. The main tension will focus on the detectives' desire to and success in identifying criminals vs achieving some meaningful sense of social justice.
Hometown: Southlake, Texas
Advisor: Simon Joyce
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