Symbolism of Settings in Crime Texts
English Lit: AQA A Level Atonement - Specification B, topic 7.6.2
Symbolism of Settings in Crime Texts
When thinking about the significance of the settings in Atonement and other set texts, you could reflect on how settings often work on a symbolic level in crime texts.
Corruption and criminality
- In Brighton Rock, the physical decay of the seedy backstreets of 1930s Brighton is symbolic of the moral decay which lies at the heart of the novel.
- Likewise, the reference to Hamlet’s Denmark as being “rotten” symbolises the corruption at the heart of the Danish court and state.
- In Oliver Twist, Dickens creates a gothic landscape of “black mist… slime and darkness” to represent the criminal underworld of London’s East End.
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Isolation and guilt
- The vast emptiness of the sea in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner emphasises the Mariner’s feelings of isolation and guilt.
Façade for criminality
- The upper-middle-class settings of Kings Abbott and Fernly Park depicted in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd symbolise the respectable façade which conceal the criminal impulses (greed, blackmail and betrayal) within.
Test yourself on Symbolism of Settings in Crime Texts
Which settings in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd represent the respectable façade of the upper middle classes?