Title: On the Cultural Function of Early British Detective Fiction Featuring Women Detectives

Abstract: The profound social changes in nineteenth-century Britain triggered the emergence of detective fiction featuring women detectives. In the meantime, its two-sideness of cultural function was also shaped by the contradictory attitudes prevalent in British society towards the advancement of women. On the one hand, it highlights female potential for public activities through re-evaluating domestic knowledge and female attributes, and creating women detectives who are wise, strong-minded and self-confident. These strategies not only question the prescriptive notions of gender in the Victoria era, but expand the cultural connotation of the genre. On the other hand, it adopts various devices to undercut female characters so as to reconcile their conflicts with dominant ideologies. As a result, ideas and images with patriarchal meaning resonate through narrative, character and plot, which implicitly represent a sense of nostalgia for and a protective stance on the existing gender order.

Keywords: detective fiction, woman detective, cultural stance, duality

Author: Qiong Li, Associate Professor, College of Foreign Languages and Cultures, Xiamen University, Xiamen, Fujian, China.