The classic and hard-boiled detective in The Moonstone

In his chapter on “Two Ways to Avoid the Real of Desire”, Zizek begins by outlining the parallel between the classic detective and the psychoanalyst in part one. An analyst interprets dreams in the same way that a detective interprets a case, the detective avoiding the conventional “big picture” of the case which traps the ordinary person in order to make sense of the clues, and the analyst avoiding “the search for the so-called “symbolic meaning” of its totality or of its constituent parts” (51). When interpreting dreams the analyst must “translate the objects back into words” and avoid simply translating the meanings of the symbols, just as the detective avoids translating the clues into the conventional big picture. Both are “subjects supposed to know.”

Zizek begins part two by complicating the detective figure, introducing the more modern hard-boiled detective in opposition to the classic detective from part one. Traditionally the difference between these two detectives has been explained as intellectual activity (on the part of the classic detective) opposed to physical activity (on the part of the hard-boiled detective). This explanation, according to Zizek, is inadequate; the difference between the two lies in engagement and debt: “The real break consists in the fact that, existentially, the classical detective is not “engaged” at all: he maintains an eccentric position throughout…[he] accepts with accentuated pleasure payment for the services he has rendered, whereas the hard-boiled detective as a rule disdains money” (60).

The classic detective accepting payment is closely tied to his lack of engagement; Zizek claims that “the payment enables him to avoid getting mixed up in the libidinal circuit of (symbolic) debt” (60). By accepting payment the classic detective is able to wash his hands of the case and maintain his distance. The comparison to the psychoanalyst is made here again, where the analyst also accepts payment from their patient in order to remain in the distant “subject supposed to know” position.

The hard-boiled detective, in contrast, refuses payment because of his involvement in the case; indeed, he often only takes on the case because he owes a certain debt to someone or something. He becomes engaged in his case by this debt, and it forces him to be “mixed up in a course of events that he is unable to dominate” and it is only by solving the mystery that he is able to “pay” his debt (62).

There are several examples of the classic detective at work. Zizek and Lacan both refer to Poe’s prototype detective, C. Auguste Dupin and the infamous Sherlock Holmes as examples, but more interesting are the detectives in Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone. The novel complicates the detective and the way we understand the difference between the classical and hard-boiled figure.

Collins’ The Moonstone has all the traits of a classic detective story. A “cursed” diamond is stolen from a locked house, the bumbling police arrive and disturb the scene before the real detective is called in. The beginning of the story is narrated by Gabriel Betteredge, the head servant who becomes fond of the infamous detective Sergeant Cuff. Betteredge acts as the classic detective’s narrator who reveals the mistakes and assumptions made by common investigators and believes in Cuff as a subject supposed to know. The plot becomes complicated when Cuff follows his clues to a dead-end and may have accidentally pushed a maid, Rosanna Spearman, to suicide; he retires with the case unsolved refusing his payment.

Later Franklin Blake assumes the role of the main detective and narrator, fitting with a hard-boiled style. Feeling indebted to the diamond’s owner, Rachel Verinder, whom he was courting at the time of the disappearance when she suddenly became cold to him, he goes to great lengths to solve the mystery. His debt increases when he discovers that the woman who committed suicide discovered evidence of his stealing the diamond, and died protecting him. Zizek claims that the solution to the mystery by the hard-boiled detective “is not just a challenge to his reason but [a] concern [to] him ethically and often painfully” (63). This also perfectly fits Franklin’s narrative, where he goes to the dangerous lengths of experiments with mixing drugs in order to recreate the theft.

In the end Sergeant Cuff reappears and comes to solve the case with the same mixture of science and intuition as that of Dupin or Holmes. The narration remains in the hands of Franklin, creating an interesting effect. The dual detectives appear simultaneously, the hard-boiled figure narrating the mystery as he attempts to solve it despite putting himself in danger, while the classic figure returns and becomes a “subject supposed to know” to the narrator/hard-boiled detective. This early detective novel thus complicates the detective figure by showing the two different types simultaneously.