"Nasty Old Cats": Sexual Politics of Spinster Detective Fiction

"거슬리는 늙은 고양이들" -노처녀탐정 추리소설의 성정치학

Focusing on Anna Katharine Green's Amelia Butterworth series and Agatha Christie's Miss Marple mysteries, this paper aims to examine the contradictory representation of a detective in spinster detective fiction. The spinster detective fiction reveals distinct ways of representing a female detective from the earlier woman detective fiction. Unlike the earlier woman detective represented as submissive and desperate for survival, a spinster detective is a wealthy, intelligent, brave, and independent woman from an upper class family. Since a spinster detective's attributes honor such masculine qualities as independence, intelligence, courage, and capacity for leadership, the spinster detective fiction has a possibility to threaten the established patriarchal authority. The possibility of gender disruption in the spinster detective fiction is, however, contained by the spinster's marginal position in the patriarchal system. Since a spinster exists outside the normal expectation of a woman's life in patriarchal society, a spinster detective creates no conflict with the dominant gender ideology. Furthermore, a spinster detective is represented as a conservative elderly woman expressing reactionary views on social, political issues including women's problems. The spinster detective fiction reinforces the established gender norms rather than challenges and questions them.