Understanding Parody, Victorian Era, Detective & Gothic Fiction
Parody
Parody: the burlesque imitation of a work or style of a writer. Throughout the text, one should recognize parodiante (Quixote) and parodied text (books of chivalry). There are two types:
- Parody Series: Imitates but to criticize.
- Burlesque Parody: Seeks to generate criticism of the imitation through humor.
Parodic Elements
- Personality: The description of Quixote was totally opposite of the true gentlemen. His squire, far from being well-educated as in the books, cared more for the material and the field, and was a man of simple and lazy nature. Dulcinea was not a princess but a rustic and poor peasant. And those who Quixote faced were not giants or knights but ordinary people.
- Weather: The adventures occurred in a mystical and remote time, far away from readers today.
- The Adventures: Cervantes recreates knightly situations in her novel, deformed by irony and humor, in which the gentleman always fails, unlike the gentlemen in the original stories who always succeed.
- Location: Not living in a palace, or a place with great reputation, but on the contrary, living in a house coming downstairs in a poor Spanish region.
- The parody is transferred to the language: A language is expressed with outdated and old words. Moreover, Sancho has simple language and is full of sayings. Cervantes used names for the actors of chivalric novels.
The Victorian Era
Features
- Technological and scientific advances.
- Time of great industrialization.
- Discoveries of Darwin and Lyell.
- Age of strict morality.
- Regulated and orderly society in the extreme.
- Growth of prostitution.
Detective Genre
The detective story emerges from the confrontation of the rational (reason prevails, logic says that by facts) and irrational (dominated by emotions, intuitions, and feelings). It makes use of characters and urban environments, the police, and security forces that were formed in the nineteenth century by promoting scientific invention. It feeds on poetry, crimes, searches, and harassment. It is that through logical deduction, identifies the offender and reveals their motive.
Features
- Personality: Presented in an antithetical perspective: The police, detective, inspector, the thief, and spy, i.e., good and bad.
- Structure: At the beginning, presents the puzzle to be solved at the end. The time to solve the mystery comes in two ways: as research progresses, the future and past of the mystery are revealed.
- Atmosphere: It is generally urban. Before, the crimes occurred indoors (close quarters), and now in the streets, to the surprise of any witnesses.
- Plot: The action provides more suspense. Always leave a thread or links to be resolved.
Gothic Fiction
Exaggerates the characters and situations in order to accentuate aesthetic effects (Hyde). It creates a supernatural scenario that aims to provoke mystery and terror (filthy streets). Reference to insanity, bestiality, and other characteristics inhuman or supernatural. Polarization between good and evil. Importance of architectural scenario: shadows and light contours. Exaltation of death, abyss, darkness, and all that torments human beings.