Women in detective fiction

Paper details:

Write a 7 – 9 page research-based literary analysis that supports a compelling interpretation of one or more texts studied in class, demonstrates skill at close reading, and responds to other literary critics and/or in-depth historical context. Choose between the following prompts for your essay topic:

Women in Detective Fiction: Often, women in detective fiction play the role of victim or femme fatale, but women who participate in detective work also appear in the genre. Write an essay that analyzes one or two of the female characters in one or two of the texts we have read for class in terms of gender. Consider how femininity and/or female gender roles are defined in this text, to what extent this definition is flexible, what limitations this definition of femininity might create, how gender influences the way these women are perceived, whether they play into and/or subvert gender stereotypes, their relationships with male characters in the novel, and to what extent their detective roles are official or unofficial.

TEXT TO CITE/REFERENCE Dorothy Sayers Strong Poison ch. 6-23 (1930)