Skull Beneath the Skin (1 Viewer)

[missemjay]

Boo!
Everyone studying Crime Fiction: Skull beneath the skin - post stuff here!
Luv
Em x

 

[jhakka]

Stuff.





Every person in our class made notes on one aspect of the novel and then we all photocopied it and got a copy of everything. I'm not typing all that up.

 

[missemjay]

well fiiiiiiiiiine then
if you want to be like that....
nah i told my english teacher that im getting them to do that in our class. but if you do find yourself typing anything about skull beneath the skin....em needs assistance!!
haha...and i can reciprocate too! here have some notes and practice essays on the topic!

 

[jhakka]

I have the notes I made about Tolly, but that's it. It's not exactly great, but then again she's not really a main character.

Everything else is in my folder. And thats a lot of words to type.

 

[t-i-m-m-y]

um maybe my notes

linky in thread or sig

 

[frodo]

Great notes missemjay, they look just like csu notes

 

[missemjay]

fine! laugh all you like!
just coz i cant think for myself....just laugh at my misfortune...
go on....keep on laughing frodo boy!!!

 

[t-i-m-m-y]

*laugh

 

[frodo]

i wasn't laughing, just commenting and smiling

 

[missemjay]

well here is my attempt to think for myself. just making notes on stuff as i read the book for the second time.

the skull beneath the skin

setting

the London jungle its chaotic nature compares to the isolated scene of the crime
the island its like England miniature its corruption reflects England itself
isolated location breeds immorality
island has a violent and bloodstained history
the very location personifies death possesses a furtive nature, gives the sense of an underworld

crime fiction conventions/themes

allusions to death all the quotes/threats, room of necrophilia
foreshadowing of something sinister/macabre
reflects the corrupt context of the time
the recurring motif of death and seeing beneath the faade
links death with youth
detective in undercover work posed as a private secretary
role of the police

techniques

foreshadowing on pain of death, let no man name death to me: it is a word infinitely terrible, Oh, God, please dont let anything terrible happen on Courcy Island
accretion of evidence and active involvement she spread out the 23 quotations on the table to study them.. she looked closely, she found herself looking around the room noticing all the details with great intensity
rhetorical questions to involve the responder And who would have access to twenty different machines?
Red herrings he said curtly I think you can put that idea out of your head. My wife has no reason to suspect any of the house party of wishing to harm her, no reason in the world

The detective - cordelia gray

not superstitious more in touch with reality and reason, making her less vulnerable
took the position by default
contrast to the hard-boiled detective
eye for detail, is precise fixing the name plaque, also representative of a new start and the mundane nature of her day
feels close to employees becomes emotionally involved with the case
not confident and has a sense of insecurity
the cat story shows us she is observant and intuitive
against first impression of young female detective
insecure young female in a male dominated field
openly defensive against her stereotyping
enter her mind solve the crime with her
independent there was already a small queue waiting for the taxis, but she saw no reason to join it
willing to take on a challenge the envelope in her pocket confirmed that the job was real, that she would pit her brain and wits against a human adversary at last
moral compass She no longer cared who was sending the messages or why.


Hope that is helpful for anyone.
timmy - i dont know if its just me but the link to your site doesnt work.

 

[smegger_em]

When i did this text my teacher had this insane idea that the novel was a very very very subtle parody of the traditional cozy soft boiled christie genre, but personally i just thought it was very very poor and that the patheticness was not an intentional stab at traditional crime fiction, it was more just pathetic.

 

[mayhemily]

anyone else find it hard to read because of... boringness?

 

[cleopatra]

yup....i FINALLY finished it tho

 

[missemjay]

I enjoyed the book, one of the few books in my life that i have actually finished...screw reading emma for advanced!

 

[missemjay]

manda - here is your resume

 

[marezmac]

Originally posted by mayhemily
anyone else find it hard to read because of... boringness?

HAHAHAHA glad someone else is having the same problem... one of the smart kids in my class has gone thru and 'post it noted' all the conventions of crime in it, character (descriptions etc) and then also done language techniques... all in different colours too, im like geez get into it

Originally posted by missemjay
I enjoyed the book, one of the few books in my life that i have actually finished...screw reading emma for advanced!

lol... hmm, emma.... holidays before the exam... maybe

 

[dy357lx]

i actually thought that for a school text The Skull... wasn't too shabby, seemed like a more traditional intuitionist text with more contemporary aspects. It started off a little slow but just b4 the first murder i thought it picked up a bit and was pretty intriguing. and yea, thats my 2 cents

 

[soiled_poncho]

I hate it. Then again... I'm not too keen on books in general. Cordelia is too annoying and slow and dull.

 

[yleadbetter]

its a really poor book. crime fiction is too easy to write so theres too much rubbish around.

 

[rass]

I hate this book so much. I usually do a lot of reading before I go to bed. Every time I've tried to read though, I've fallen asleep before the end of the chapter. I've got a bunch of stuff to write up for tomorrow, and no one's even died yet! As a novel it's rubbish, but as a cure for insomnia... I can see a few possiblities there.