| Noir fiction is doom-laden and pessimistic. It may have
humour, it will
| have action, but at the tale's black heart will be a
character trapped
| in a situation from which there seems to be no escape. Some
purists
| would go so far as to say there must be no escape. The
plight of a
| desperate man (it usually is a man) fighting in vain
against the fates
| marks out noir fiction and gives it its savour.
I keep going back to literary naturalism when I read these
definitions of noir. Think of McTeague at the end of the
novel by the same name. Now there's a guy who's fought
against the fates (or his heredity and environment) and who's
now totally screwed.
Or how about Clyde Griffiths in AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY? That
book is the template for a lot of noir fiction, it seems to
me.
Bill Crider
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