The romance of mystery and the mystery of romance: Charlotte Smith's Ethelinde, Wilkie Collins's "I say no," the McGuffin, and narrative closure (Article)
In this article, I argue that Charlotte Smith’s novel Ethelinde (1789) is structurally similar to Wilkie Collins’s novel “I Say No” (1884). As a consequence, Ethelinde highlights similarities between two of the great genres of formula fiction: the romance and the whodunit. Further, I shall argue...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2023
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/172636 |
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| Institution: | Nanyang Technological University |
| Language: | English |
| Summary: | In this article, I argue that Charlotte Smith’s novel Ethelinde (1789) is structurally similar
to Wilkie Collins’s novel “I Say No” (1884). As a consequence, Ethelinde highlights
similarities between two of the great genres of formula fiction: the romance and the
whodunit. Further, I shall argue that the twentieth-century theory of the McGuffin can
complicate generic conventions by showing how a driving narrative force can evade clear categorization as either a McGuffin or not. |
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