Abstract

SEXISM, PATRIARCHY AND WOMEN’S DETECTIVE FICTION: A FEMINIST ANALYSIS OF MARCIA MULLER’S SHARON MCCONE SERIES

P.V.Geetha Lakshmi Patnaik

Volume: 10 Issue: 2 2020

Abstract:

Detective fiction, which was traditionally dominated by men as writers, protagonists and readers, was one of the first genres to be appropriated by women after the second wave of feminism. It provided the opportunity for women to focus attention on issues concerning women, reflecting the complexity and diversity of all the various facets of contemporary feminism. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, writers like Marcia Muller, Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton took up the masculinist and misogynist American hard-boiled detective novel of the 1930s and 1940s and rewrote it for feminist ends. This paper analyses the treatment of sexism and patriarchy in women’s detective fiction with specific reference to Marcia Muller’s Edwin of the Iron Shoes (1977) and There’s Something in a Sunday (1989).

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