Does Gender Matter in Detective Fiction

Does Gender Matter in Detective Fiction 

During the last part of the course, we read and watch texts in which women are in the position of detective, following an historical shift that happened beginning around 1982, when a “boom” began in female-authored crime fiction featuring female detectives. That shift raised the interesting question of how and whether gender matters in detective fiction. That is, are these texts substantially different from earlier detective fiction or do female detectives merely fill the shoes of the earlier male ones? Focusing particularly on portrayals of women—not only the detectives, but also other women characters—consider how gender matters in Hard Time by by Sara Paretsky This paper should be an analytical, critical essay that argues a particular case. You must have a thesis—a clear statement of the position for which you are arguing, preferably placed toward the end of your introductory paragraph—and your essay should offer evidence for that thesis in the form of specific examples from the relevant text(s). Please do not use outside sources for this paper, but you may draw on any materials assigned in our course. You should use proper citation style, preferably MLA; guidelines are available online at the Purdue OWL.