'The Great Good Place' No More? Integrating and Dismantling Oppositional Discourse in Some Recent Examples of Serial Killer Fiction

Serial killer narratives delight in portraying a gothic social landscape of pervasive and endemic crime, violence and evil in a postmodern context of apathy, indifference and institutional incompetence. In this paper I analyse the extent of the critique of contemporary society in this popular genre....

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Santaularia Capdevila, Isabel
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2007
País:España
Institución:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
Repositorio:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
OAI Identifier:oai:recercat.cat:10459.1/69363
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10459.1/69363
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Popular narratives
Genre narrative
Detective fiction
Gothic
Serial killer narratives
Discourse
Descripción
Sumario:Serial killer narratives delight in portraying a gothic social landscape of pervasive and endemic crime, violence and evil in a postmodern context of apathy, indifference and institutional incompetence. In this paper I analyse the extent of the critique of contemporary society in this popular genre. Using some recent examples of serial killer narratives – both novels and films – as case studies, I argue that, even though they accommodate a discourse that jeopardises the comfortable imagining in detective fictions of an innocent society threatened by occasional crime, serial killer narratives ultimately endorse the status quo and the state apparatuses that regulate it and guarantee its preservation.