Journal of Literary Criticism

Journal of Literary Criticism

Investigating the importance and methods of designing riddles in detective narratives with a focus on the novel "Young Skull" based on the hermeneutic codes of Roland Barthes

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
ayoob moradi 1
Mahmoud Kamali 2
1 Associate Professor, Department of Persian Language and Literature, Payame Noor University
2 Payam Noor University assistant professor
10.22034/jlc.2024.423188.1601
Abstract
Copyright: © 2025 by the authors. Submitted for possible open access publication under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY- NC) license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).





 



The main feature of the detective novel as one of the branches of the crime genre is the centrality of the mystery in the narrative. A riddle or riddles that revolve around the three main questions of the killer's identity, how the murder happened, and the killer's motivation. A successful writer in the field of detective narratives is also one who can keep the reader with him until the end of the narrative by designing attractive riddles and skilfully including them in the text. But the problem is that, despite the importance given to the issue of puzzle design in theoretical sources, no specific model has been proposed for this issue. Therefore, in this research, an attempt was made to focus on the text of the novel "Young Skull" by Laleh Zare and based on the hermeneutic codes introduced by Roland Barthes for the semiotic reading of the text, Barthes considered the hermeneutic code to investigate the riddles of the text. Codes that fit the theme of riddle design in detective narratives. The results of the study showed that Barthe's ten steps in hermeneutic codes can provide a specific framework for the writers of detective novels. In this way, observing the seven stages of thematization, fixing the position of the riddle, formulating the riddle, promising the answer, blocking the solving of the riddle, suspending the answer and deciphering are among the necessary things, and the three stages of obfuscation, deception of the audience and partial answer are optional.
 
Keywords
Narratology
crime genre
detective novel
mystery
Roland Barthes codes

Subjects

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Journal of Literary Criticism
Volume 9, Issue 17
May 2025
Pages 151-111

  • Receive Date 31 October 2023
  • Revise Date 05 February 2024
  • Accept Date 19 February 2024