Page "belles_lettres" Paragraph 342
from
Brown Corpus
It is the growing contradiction between individualism and public service in the mystery story which creates this fatal dilemma.
By upholding his own personal code of behavior, the private detective has placed himself in opposition to a society whose fabric is permeated with crime and corruption.
That society responds by condemning the private eye as a threat to the status quo, a potential criminal.
If the detective insists upon retaining his personal standards, he must now do so in conscious defiance of his society.
He must, in short, cease to be a detective and become a rebel.
On the other hand, if he wishes to continue in his chosen profession, he must abandon his own code and sacrifice his precious individualism.
Dashiell Hammett resolved this contradiction by ceasing to write mystery stories and turning to other pursuits.
His successors have adopted the opposite alternative.
In order to save the mystery story, they have converted the private detective into an organization man.
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