Imagens da morte: um estudo do gênero policial-fantástico em Poe, Wilde e Christie

Abstract

The mirror has always been related to different symbols, usually connected to self-knowledge and truth. This is due to the fact that this object shows whoever looks oneself in it an image as close to reality as it is possible. On the other hand, the mirror is also associated to mysticism and to the supernatural for it can magically duplicate one who looks into it. This ambiguous characteristic turns the mirror into an element that is fantastic in itself and places it in the central position of our discussion. Therefore, in this study, we analyze the texts In a Glass Darkly, by Agatha Christie, The Oval Portrait, by Edgar Allan Poe, and The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde, giving special attention to the study of the images and artificial representations of men: the mirror, as an ephemeral representation; and the portrait, as an attempt to eternize an ephemeral image. We also discuss themes such as jealousy, the double, and death in the several forms in which it appears in the texts: suicides, homicides, attempted murders, death in life (mourning, separation, and developmental phases) all of which are, somehow, related to the specular representations. The narrative resource of using a mirror to introduce the supernatural event, along with the theme of death in all the narratives we have studied, and the difficulty to place these texts within the pre-established genres led us to categorize them as being part of a hybrid genre that presents characteristics both of the fantastic and of the detective story which we have named fantastic-detective story