Deviation From The Classical Detective Story:Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock

Brighton Rock, as a mark of Graham Greene’s literary production transiting from entertainments to serious novels, represents both a major achievement and a crucial turning point in his literary career. Plenty of the critics regard it as the finest novel Greene produced, so does Greene himself. Although his Brighton Rock has been poured numerous scholars’ effort to research, most of their attention has been paid to the analyses of the novel from the perspectives of theme, language, and writing techniques et al., mostly neglecting the generic specificity of the novel. This thesis attempts to apply the typology theory of the detective story to the analysis of the generic features of Brighton Rock, and to point out its deviation from the classical detective fiction by means of discarding the image of detective as a superman hero, of transforming the structure of narrative, and of challenging the implied ideology of the classical detective story. Through these approaches, Greene promotes successfully the literary value of the detective story.This thesis comprises three major parts, namely, the introduction, the body and the conclusion.The introduction concerns a general survey of the criticisms on the novel both at home and abroad, the theoretical perspective utilized in the study, as well as the objective and the significance of this research.In Chapter One, some detective story writers and critics, including Marjorie Bowen, Edgar Allan Poe and T. S. Eliot, who have profound influence upon Greene and his works, are introduced, and Greene’s insight into the classical detective story is also mentioned.Chapter Two focuses on the parody of the classical detective hero. Through the analysis of the great detective with outstanding intelligence and personality, the present author demonstrates that Ida Arnold, an unreasonable detective seeking fun rather than justice, is an accretion of the degraded social and cultural environment.Chapter Three is devoted to the analysis of the structural difference between Brighton Rock and the classical detective story. According to Tzvetan Todorov’s analysis of the structure of the classical detective story begun with "the story of the investigation" and ended with "the story of the crime", this thesis points out the two stories are intertwined along a shared time-line in Brighton Rock.Chapter Four elaborates on how Brighton Rock challenges the ideology of the classical detective story. The classical detective story is a channel of propaganda for authority of ruling class and the established order, while Brighton Rock facilitates a recorder of modern society in chaos and disorder.The conclusion summarizes Greene’s deliberate manipulation of imitation and deviation from the classical detective story in Brighton Rock. It technically achieves the elevation of the detective story to a bridge for serious literature and the transcendence of the classical detective story.