City Research Online

Abstract

Critics have often sought to place Thomas Hardy’s fiction within a realist generic framework, with a significant emphasis on Hardy’s Wessex settings, visual imagination and equation of sight with knowledge. Yet Hardy’s writings frequently disturb realist generic conventions by introducing elements from popular nineteenth-century genres, particularly sensation fiction and the Gothic. This essay considers how murder as a plot device troubles generic boundaries in the novels Desperate Remedies (1871), Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) and Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891). Set against backgrounds with significant non-realist elements, these texts view murder and its punishment from limited, distorted or averted perspectives that articulate a significant social and cultural critique.

Publication Type:	Article
Publisher Keywords:	Thomas Hardy; murder; genre; sensation fiction; realism; Gothic; framing; architecture; spatiality
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PR English literature
Departments:	School of Communication & Creativity > Media, Culture & Creative Industries > English, Publishing & Creative Writing
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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