{"title":"Crime Fiction and the Knowing of Pain","authors":"Susannah B. Mintz","doi":"10.1353/lm.2023.a921573","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Abstract:</p><p>Recent studies of pain have disputed the idea that pain eludes representation in language. Where these have largely focused on the <i>experience</i> of pain, my paper examines the epistemological <i>function</i> of pain in crime fiction, a genre that by definition foregrounds meaning: what and how we know. A good crime story depends structurally on resolution, but its pleasure derives more thoroughly from suspense. Pain would seem to defy those logics; surely we long for its ending, not its persistence. Yet many contemporary detectives do their work in pain, embodying an impossible contradiction between chaos and order. This suggests that pain is somehow integral to the process of knowing, inviting us to rethink pain as disrupting rather than constituting the forward motion of meaning.</p></p>","PeriodicalId":44538,"journal":{"name":"LITERATURE AND MEDICINE","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"LITERATURE AND MEDICINE","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/lm.2023.a921573","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LITERATURE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract:
Recent studies of pain have disputed the idea that pain eludes representation in language. Where these have largely focused on the experience of pain, my paper examines the epistemological function of pain in crime fiction, a genre that by definition foregrounds meaning: what and how we know. A good crime story depends structurally on resolution, but its pleasure derives more thoroughly from suspense. Pain would seem to defy those logics; surely we long for its ending, not its persistence. Yet many contemporary detectives do their work in pain, embodying an impossible contradiction between chaos and order. This suggests that pain is somehow integral to the process of knowing, inviting us to rethink pain as disrupting rather than constituting the forward motion of meaning.
期刊介绍：
Literature and Medicine is a journal devoted to exploring interfaces between literary and medical knowledge and understanding. Issues of illness, health, medical science, violence, and the body are examined through literary and cultural texts. Our readership includes scholars of literature, history, and critical theory, as well as health professionals.
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