Crime Fiction
Session Three:
Tom Stoppard, The Real Inspector
Hound
Agenda
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Fiction vs drama
Tom Stoppard, The Real Inspector Hound:
The play and the-play-within-the-play
The play and the country house murder
mystery: parody and pastiche
Fiction vs Drama
• Fiction:
• (re)reading
• Asynchronic
experience
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Drama:
Watching
Listening
Synchronic
experience
Fiction vs Drama
• Fiction involves reading. When we read
fiction, we have to recreate the fictional
world in our minds.
• Plays involve watching and listening.
When we watch a play we are the
witnesses to a fictional world that has
already been recreated for us (by the
director among others).
Fiction vs Drama
• Reading is an asynchronous experience. It
allows for rereading. We have the
opportunity of refreshing our memories by
going over particular passages again.
• Watching a play is a synchronous
experience. We cannot ask the actors to
recapitulate a particular scene or dialogue.
Fiction vs Drama
• Because we’re supposed to get the point
the first time around, drama tends to be
less complex than prose fiction.
• A play will often use repetitions to secure
that its point is registered.
Tom Stoppard, The Real Inspector
Hound
• Read the opening stage direction carefully
• Make a drawing of the stage following the
direction carefully (use the following slide
to get you started.
• Include the drawing in your portfolio
http://www.theatrecrafts.com/glossa
ry/pages/stageplan.html
Tom Stoppard, The Real Inspector
Hound
• Stoppard’s play follows the play-within-theplay convention that most people are
familiar with from Hamlet, for instance.
• We have two levels:
• The level of the play is constituted by two
theatre critics watching a play
• The level of the play-within-the-play is the
whodunnit they’re are watching and
reviewing
Tom Stoppard, The Real Inspector
Hound
• Stoppard’s play, then, mingles the two
levels as Birdboot and Moon are caught
up in the action of the play-within-the-play
• Like the opening tableau, this mixing of
levels is also ”impossible” since they
represent two distinct and mutually
exclusive categories:
Tom Stoppard, The Real Inspector
Hound
• The play:
• Life
• Reality
• The play-within-theplay:
• Art
• Fiction
Tom Stoppard, The Real Inspector
Hound
• On a piece of paper, make a list of
characters for the play and the play-withinthe-play respectively
• Show how they cross over between the
two levels (follow, for instance, my
suggestions in the next slide)
• Include the list of characters and their
relationships to the two levels in the
portfolio
Tom Stoppard, The Real Inspector
Hound
• The play:
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•
Life
Reality
Birdboot
Moon
• The play-within-theplay:
• Art
• Fiction
• Simon Gascoyne
• Inspector Hound
Tom Stoppard, The Real Inspector
Hound
• By having the two levels merge with each other,
Stoppard appears to want to teach us a lesson:
• Our existences are intertwined with scripts and
roles – we play a part in life. That we cannot
escape.
• If you want to succeed, you’ll have to do more
than just to follow the script (since sticking to the
script gets you killed).
• To succeed you’ll have to be a ”cunning bastard”
(Moon’s expression at the end of the play) and
actively manipulate the scripts you’re written into
and the roles you play.
Tom Stoppard, The Real Inspector
Hound
• In his play, Stoppard makes use of and
manipulates a famous generic convention for his
own ends: The country house murder mystery.
• More particularly, he draws upon Agatha
Christie’s play The Mousetrap
• Find information on the Internet concerning The
Mousetrap, especially concerning its ending.
Print and include in the portfolio (max three
documents)
Tom Stoppard, The Real Inspector
Hound
• Stoppard’s use of the generic conventions of the country
house murder mystery involves parody and satire.
• For instance, the way in which the telephone is used in
the beginning of the play when Mrs Drudge answers it
satirises the dramatic incompetence of most whodunnits
• The telephone conversation is a clumsy short cut that
tries to furnish us with important information concerning,
among other things, Lord Albert Muldoon, by having Mrs
Drudge tell it to the audience.
• A serious playwright would, of course, have dramatised
that information and shown it to the audience in a
seperate scene, for instance.
Tom Stoppard, The Real Inspector
Hound
• Make a list of other aspects that strike you
as parodic of the genre in general or The
Mousetrap in particular.
• Your list should include aspects that relate
to, among other things, props, characters,
dialogue, and action.
• Include the list in your portfolio.
Tom Stoppard, The Real Inspector
Hound
• But Stoppard’s play is clearly not just a parody. It is also
a highly effective example of the genre at the same time.
It is also a highly effective pastiche.
• When we read / watch the play we cannot help but be
caught up in the puzzle (who is the killer?)
• Similarly, we cannot help but look for clues as to his
identity
• And lastly, we have to admire Stoppard’s successful
manipulation of the conventions of the genre when we
discover how closely he has followed the rules pertaining
to a locked room mystery: the killer was indeed in their
midst all the time!
Tom Stoppard, The Real Inspector
Hound
• Thus, almost like Moon’s dying admiration
for Puckeridge , we’re forced to conclude
with approval that Tom Stoppard is a
”cunning bastard”!