Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Victims and Heroes Get All Mixed Up: Gender and Agency in the Thriller

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Heroes and Heroism in British Fiction Since 1800

Abstract

The thriller is concerned with threat to the security of individuals and the social order, and thus with the ability or non-ability to resist such threat. The genre can therefore serve as a site where concepts of the heroic, and especially the relationship between heroes, victims and perpetrators, are negotiated. For some recent examples of the genre, notably novels by Ken Follett and Val McDermid, Korte shows how this negotiation implies an engagement with the gendering of agency. While this gendering may confirm stereotypes, the more intriguing examples such as McDermid’s Cross and Burn use the disturbing elements of the thriller to unsettle orthodox assumptions about heroism and gender.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

References

Primary Texts

  • Boyd, W. (2014) Solo (London: Vintage).

    Google Scholar 

  • Fleming, I. (2002) Casino Royale (London: Penguin).Follett, K. (2015) Whiteout (London: Pan).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hawkins, P. (2015) The Girl on the Train (London: Doubleday).Horowitz, A. (2015) Trigger Mortis (London: Orion).

    Google Scholar 

  • McDermid, V. (2006) The Last Temptation (London: HarperCollins).McDermid, V. (2014) Cross and Burn (London: Sphere).

    Google Scholar 

  • Rimington, S. (2004) At Risk (London: Hutchinson).

    Google Scholar 

Secondary Sources

  • Bloom, C. (ed.) (1990) Twentieth-Century Suspense: The Thriller Comes of Age (Basingstoke: Macmillan).

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, J.A. (2011) Dangerous Curves: Action Heroines, Gender, Fetishism, and Popular Culture (Jackson: UP of Mississippi).

    Google Scholar 

  • Cawelti, J.G. (1976) Adventure, Mystery, and Romance: Formula Stories as Art and Popular Culture (Chicago: U of Chicago P).

    Google Scholar 

  • Clover, C. (1992) Men, Women, and Chainsaw: Gender in the Modern Horror Film (Princeton: Princeton UP).

    Google Scholar 

  • Edwards, L.R. (1984) ‘Prologue: The Labors of Psyche: Women Heroes and Patriarchal Culture.’ In L.R. Edwards (ed.) Psyche as Hero: Female Heroism and Fictional Form (Middletown: Wesleyan UP), pp. 3–16.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gelder, K. (2004) Popular Fiction: The Logic and Practices of a Literary Field (London: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Giesen, B. (2004) Triumph and Trauma (Boulder: Paradigm).

    Google Scholar 

  • Glover, D. (1989) ‘The Stuff that Dreams are Made of: Masculinity, Femininity and the Thriller.’ In D. Longhurst (ed.) Gender, Genre and Narrative Pleasure (London: Unwin Hyman), pp. 67–83.

    Google Scholar 

  • Glover, D. (2003) ‘The Thriller.’ In Martin Priestman (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction (Cambridge: Cambridge UP), pp. 135–53.

    Google Scholar 

  • Korte, B. (2011) ‘Tough or Tongue in Cheek? Heroic Performances of Bond from Page to Screen.’ In J. Frenk and C. Krug (eds.) The Cultures of James Bond (Trier: WVT), pp. 25–38.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCaw, N. (2012) ‘Beyond Gender and Sexuality: The Serial Killers of Val McDermid.’ In J.H. Kim (ed.) Murdering Miss Marple: Essays on Gender and Sexuality in the New Golden Age of Women’s Crime Fiction (Jefferson: McFarland), pp. 191–210.

    Google Scholar 

  • Palmer, J. (1978) Thrillers: Genesis and Structure of a Popular Genre (London: Edward Arnold).

    Google Scholar 

  • Palmer, J. (1984) ‘Thrillers.’ In C. Pawling (ed.) Popular Fiction and Social Change (London: Macmillan), pp. 76–98.

    Google Scholar 

  • Priestman, M. (ed.) (1988) Crime Fiction from Poe to the Present (Plymouth: Northcote).

    Google Scholar 

  • Radway, J. (1991) Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature (Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P).

    Google Scholar 

  • Ramet, C. (2015) Ken Follett and the Triumph of Suspense: A Popular Writer Transcends Genres (Jefferson: McFarland).

    Google Scholar 

  • Scaggs, J. (2005) Crime Fiction (London: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. English Department, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany

    Barbara Korte

Authors
  1. Barbara Korte
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Barbara Korte .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. English Department, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany

    Barbara Korte

  2. English Department, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany

    Stefanie Lethbridge

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Korte, B. (2017). Victims and Heroes Get All Mixed Up: Gender and Agency in the Thriller. In: Korte, B., Lethbridge, S. (eds) Heroes and Heroism in British Fiction Since 1800. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33557-5_11

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation