Specimen ‘Plotting and calculation are central
ingredients of crime literature.ʼ
Specimen
‘Plotting and calculation are central ingredients of crime literature.ʼ Explore the significance of
plotting and calculation as they are presented in two crime texts you have studied
[25 marks]
Murder of Roger Ackroyd and The Poetry Collection
Porphyriaʼs Lover – being a spur of the moment crime lacking malice afterthought.
Peter Grimes also being spur of the moment.
The Laboratory being premediated – giving the reader a fascinating picture of plotting
crime.
Poirotʼs calculation and plotting being integral to the discovery of the crime.
Dr Sheppardʼs plotting.
For centuries, critics have discussed whether the crimes presented in crime fiction either have a
‘malice aforethoughtʼ to them, where plotting and calculation occur as a central ingredients to
the crime committed, or if the crime occurs with no previous planning being a crime of the
moment instead. In the Murder of Roger Ackroyd and Poetry Collection we are presented with
both aspects of crimes. The crimes committed in both texts have both premeditation while also
being spur of the moments crimes. In this essay I will therefore discuss to what extent ‘plotting
and calculation are central ingredients of crime literatureʼ.
In Porphyriaʼs Lover, the stream of consciousness reveals the narrators thoughts in a dynamic
order presenting them in the apparent order in which they occurred. It is therefore on Line 33
where the volta of the poem occurs as “at last” the narrator knew how “Porphyria worshipped”
him that his decision to kill her seems to lack all plotting and calculation. The declarative “at
last” suggests the sensation of an epiphany in which we as readers experience the narrators
intense possessive and obsessive thoughts alongside him. Through the anadiplosis “she was
mine, mine” the string of possessive pronouns highlights the narrators moment of realisation for
what he has to do. The murder weapon itself being Porphyriaʼs own “yellow hair” which he
“wound Three times her little throat around” suggests a further lack of planning behind the
crime, using only what is available – Porphyriaʼs own autonomy to murder her.
Through a 19th century perspective where the method in which Porphyria made her “white
shoulder bare” and displaced all her “yellow hair”, she would have been seen as exerting a
power over the narrator not natural to the “essential Victorian patriarchal vision” (Foss).
Through this, Porphyriaʼs sexual prominence and promiscuity (which would have placed her in
the ‘dregsʼ of Victorian society) can be seen as the reason, the very current reason, within the
poem to which the narrator decides to kill her and preserve her in this illustrious idealist state.
ingredients of crime literature.ʼ
Specimen
‘Plotting and calculation are central ingredients of crime literature.ʼ Explore the significance of
plotting and calculation as they are presented in two crime texts you have studied
[25 marks]
Murder of Roger Ackroyd and The Poetry Collection
Porphyriaʼs Lover – being a spur of the moment crime lacking malice afterthought.
Peter Grimes also being spur of the moment.
The Laboratory being premediated – giving the reader a fascinating picture of plotting
crime.
Poirotʼs calculation and plotting being integral to the discovery of the crime.
Dr Sheppardʼs plotting.
For centuries, critics have discussed whether the crimes presented in crime fiction either have a
‘malice aforethoughtʼ to them, where plotting and calculation occur as a central ingredients to
the crime committed, or if the crime occurs with no previous planning being a crime of the
moment instead. In the Murder of Roger Ackroyd and Poetry Collection we are presented with
both aspects of crimes. The crimes committed in both texts have both premeditation while also
being spur of the moments crimes. In this essay I will therefore discuss to what extent ‘plotting
and calculation are central ingredients of crime literatureʼ.
In Porphyriaʼs Lover, the stream of consciousness reveals the narrators thoughts in a dynamic
order presenting them in the apparent order in which they occurred. It is therefore on Line 33
where the volta of the poem occurs as “at last” the narrator knew how “Porphyria worshipped”
him that his decision to kill her seems to lack all plotting and calculation. The declarative “at
last” suggests the sensation of an epiphany in which we as readers experience the narrators
intense possessive and obsessive thoughts alongside him. Through the anadiplosis “she was
mine, mine” the string of possessive pronouns highlights the narrators moment of realisation for
what he has to do. The murder weapon itself being Porphyriaʼs own “yellow hair” which he
“wound Three times her little throat around” suggests a further lack of planning behind the
crime, using only what is available – Porphyriaʼs own autonomy to murder her.
Through a 19th century perspective where the method in which Porphyria made her “white
shoulder bare” and displaced all her “yellow hair”, she would have been seen as exerting a
power over the narrator not natural to the “essential Victorian patriarchal vision” (Foss).
Through this, Porphyriaʼs sexual prominence and promiscuity (which would have placed her in
the ‘dregsʼ of Victorian society) can be seen as the reason, the very current reason, within the
poem to which the narrator decides to kill her and preserve her in this illustrious idealist state.
