American crime fiction and the atomic age

Abstract

“American Crime Fiction and the Atomic Age” explores how America\u27s nuclear narrative of the 1950s and 1960s shaped the decade\u27s crime fiction. After the first explosion of the A-bombs, atomic discourse was instrumental in forming perspectives on all themes common to crime fiction: in particular, individual and collective safety, survival, guilt and morality. The A-bomb\u27s unprecedented magnitude of apocalyptic-level violence on civilians generated an uncertainty about the moral justifications for the bomb\u27s use and fears about individual survival. This dissertation investigates how central motifs in the era\u27s crime fiction, the disruptive aftermath of violent actions, its sought-after containment, and psychological effects, are rich with parallels to the anxieties and fears illustrated by this atomic sensibility. Through a critique of America\u27s nuclear narrative, chapter one considers how the characters in Patricia Highsmith\u27s Strangers on a Train (1950), The Blunderer (1954), and The Talented Mr. Ripley (1955) all push themselves to moral extremes. I view the psychological repercussions for their violent actions as exhibiting components of America\u27s own identity struggles after the A-bomb\u27s detonation. My second chapter centers on atomized individuals in Richard Wright\u27s The Outsider (1953) and Savage Holiday (1954). I explore how random, violent accidents propel the novels\u27 protagonists to perform violent actions, to seek rationale for them, and then ultimately to suffer dismal fates. Such plot conventions are indicative of an atomic mentality, specifically the rationale for using of the A-bomb to end World War II. Chapters three and four discuss how post-bomb crime fiction portrays the disintegration and destruction of the familial paradigm. Given how the nation\u27s containment policy positioned domesticity as a buffer to the bomb\u27s ever-present threat to existence, this dissertation proposes that such concerns reflect America\u27s evolving nuclear narrative. Chapter three explores the subtle link between familial and atomic anxiety in selected novels by Ross Macdonald. My final chapter analyzes how in Truman Capote\u27s In Cold Blood, the narrative both obfuscates and explains the crime, representing the nuclear age\u27s rampant ethos, one preoccupied with the prevention of and explanation for the constant threat to the security and future of the American way of life