HARD Boiled
ESSAY PRACTICE – HARD BOILED
‘It is the moral struggles of the ‘Private Investigator’, coping with the forces of good and evil in his world, as much as an investigation of a crime, that responders find so appealing in ‘hard boiled’ crime fiction.’
Write an essay in which you personally evaluate the extent to which this statement is a fair assessment of the ‘hard boiled’ sub-genre in Crime Writing.
You need to make direct reference to at least four texts (excerpts, images, book covers, films, novels, cartoons, comics, other sources) in your response. * The times were depressing and sad, therefore people believed that it was better to read stories that reflected the times * Moral struggles = flaws, therefore seems more real * …show more content…
The hard drinking detective, defined by their tough personality and cynical attitude, also possessed a more vulnerable side which appealed to the society of the time. This vulnerability was a main factor in the detective’s moral struggles with good and evil. They had to face issues such as corruption and fraud to solve their crimes, and this made them seem more real to the audience, and therefore more appealing and interesting. In hard boiled visual texts, the use of shadows is prominent, originating from film noir also known as black film. These shadows help to emphasise the moral struggles of the detectives. The shadows allude to an idea that things aren’t necessarily all black and white; there can be areas which are slightly ambiguous. This is much like the life of the hard boiled detectives as they must make some hard decisions which may not necessarily have a clear cut answer. An example of this use of shadows is the first opening of Richard Stark’s comic ‘Parker: The Hunter’ where there is a heavy use of shadows in the background in the sky, and in the foreground around the cars. These shadows show the darkness that surrounds these men and the moral ambiguity they
‘It is the moral struggles of the ‘Private Investigator’, coping with the forces of good and evil in his world, as much as an investigation of a crime, that responders find so appealing in ‘hard boiled’ crime fiction.’
Write an essay in which you personally evaluate the extent to which this statement is a fair assessment of the ‘hard boiled’ sub-genre in Crime Writing.
You need to make direct reference to at least four texts (excerpts, images, book covers, films, novels, cartoons, comics, other sources) in your response. * The times were depressing and sad, therefore people believed that it was better to read stories that reflected the times * Moral struggles = flaws, therefore seems more real * …show more content…
The hard drinking detective, defined by their tough personality and cynical attitude, also possessed a more vulnerable side which appealed to the society of the time. This vulnerability was a main factor in the detective’s moral struggles with good and evil. They had to face issues such as corruption and fraud to solve their crimes, and this made them seem more real to the audience, and therefore more appealing and interesting. In hard boiled visual texts, the use of shadows is prominent, originating from film noir also known as black film. These shadows help to emphasise the moral struggles of the detectives. The shadows allude to an idea that things aren’t necessarily all black and white; there can be areas which are slightly ambiguous. This is much like the life of the hard boiled detectives as they must make some hard decisions which may not necessarily have a clear cut answer. An example of this use of shadows is the first opening of Richard Stark’s comic ‘Parker: The Hunter’ where there is a heavy use of shadows in the background in the sky, and in the foreground around the cars. These shadows show the darkness that surrounds these men and the moral ambiguity they