The novel "Intruder in the Dust" was written by the American author William Faulkner. The story covers the topics of life in the South, racial injustice and the problems the South was facing. The setting is the fictional county of Yoknapatawpha, more precisely the town of Jefferson. Charles Mallison, a 16-year-old boy, is the narrator who tells the story of the black farmer, Lucas Beauchamp, wrongly arrested for the murder of a white man, named Vinson Gowrie. Lucas is exonerated through the efforts of the white teenager.
Charles Mallison, together with the black friend and family servant, Aleck Sander, as well as Miss Eunice Habersham, a lady of seventy , secretly drives out to the grave of Vinson Gowrie and digs him up. At the open grave they find out that the murdered person in the grave is not Vinson Gowrie but a man called Jake Montgomery. After this discovery they call Charles Mallison’s uncle, Gavin Stevens, for help. The lawyer, Gavin Stevens, and the sheriff, Hope Hampton, manage to arrest the true murderer Crawford Gowrie by using Lucas Beauchamp as a kind of “bait”.
After arresting Gowrie in the local jail, he commits suicide in his cell. Crawford Gowrie was stealing lumber from his uncle and from his brother Vinson. He wanted to conceal this and therefore killed his brother Vinson. During the whole story, Lucas Beauchamp never tries to convince people from his innocence by explaining what happened, he simply wants them to see for themselves, as he knows that no white man would believe a black man.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction
2 History and Definition of the Detective Story
3 Intruder in the Dust as a Detective Story
3.1 Elements of the Plot
3.1.1 The Murder as the Central Crime
3.1.2 Interrogation of Suspects
3.1.3 The Answer to the Crime
3.1.4 The Red Herring
3.1.5 The Idea of Fair Play
3.2 Places and Figures in a Detective Story
3.3 The Protagonists in a Detective Story
3.3.1 The Role of the Detective
3.3.2 The Role of the Watson Figure
4 History and Definition of the Novel of Initiation
5 Intruder in the Dust as a Novel of Initiation
5.1 The Beginning of Charles Mallison’s Maturation
5.1.1 Charles Mallison as a Racist
5.1.1.1 Charles Mallison’s Use of Language
5.1.1.2 Charles Mallison’s Attitude towards Lucas
5.1.2 Charles Mallison’s Moment of Initiation
5.2 The Process of Charles Mallison’s Maturation
5.2.1 Charles Mallison’s Emotional Transformation
5.2.2 Charles Mallison’s Intellectual Transformation
5.3 The End of Charles Mallison’s Maturation
5.3.1 Charles Mallison as a Man
5.3.2 Charles Mallison’s Reconciliation to Society
6 Summary
7 Works Cited List
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