Alfred Hitchcock's The Rear Window and Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment

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Crime Writing is a crafted representation of the transgression into the darker psychological side of humanity’s repressed desires to act in unfettered ways. In Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 postmodern film, Rear Window and Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s 1888 existential thriller, Crime and Punishment, the conventions and values of the genre are understood to be permeable and are constantly shifting. Yet, the core values explored in archetypal Crime Writing are re-shaped, yet retained in contemporary Crime texts. This is extensively reflected through the overarching idea of the quest for the acquisition of justice, alongside Voyeurism and Changing Gender roles. As featured, Crime Writing through the genre theory is understood to be fluid and a product of social discourses. Accordingly, the thematic concerns in both texts are inherently linked to each author’s social, cultural and political ideologies. This heightens the responder’s understanding of the prominent values of each author’s respective eras. Hence, the shifting and permeable boundaries, and generic conventions of Crime Writing act as a vehicle to critique and comprehend issues central to society.

Voyeuristic ideologies reveal the hidden, darker world of society. In Rear Window, the continual visual motif of Voyeurism and Postmodernist Film Noir ideologies are utilised to explore the issues of 1954 era through cinematic visual puzzles. Set in the 1954, the anxiety regarding the infiltration of the Communist government, dangers of Totalitarianism surveillance, disciplinary ‘gaze’ present within the West and the Cold war is a prevalent notion that is brought forth through the idea of male ‘gaze’ and ‘peeping’. Initially, the Crime is displaced by Jeff, his relationship with Lisa, inte...

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...Dostoyevsky represents the ironic empowerment of women through their personal values and integrity in a secularised, patriarchal society. In the light of the above, the genre features the varying perceptions of “Feminisation” due to evolving contexts, thereby trouncing misogynist ideologies and conservative gender codes.

In précis, both texts acknowledge the reflections of the core values of the author’s respective eras. Accordingly, the shifting and permeable conventions of the Crime Writing Genre resonate with the fluid construction of texts. Yet, the core values of the genre remains the same, despite shifting context and permeable conventions. Thus, “the more things change”, exemplifies how the genre and its conventions may constantly “change”, “the more they stay the same”, reflects how changing contexts leads to retain adjustments.

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