Margie Orford’s Hybrid Narratives: Crime Fiction Subgenres and the Theme of Misogyny in Daddy’s Girl and Like Clockwork

Abstract

This thesis sets out to identity the different types of subgenres that constitute Margie Orford’s crime fiction novels Like Clockwork and Daddy’s Girl, and to explore their connections to the extensive and variegated descriptions of misogyny that pervades both novels. The research consists of two parts: The first part provides a general description of the different subgenres that Orford’s works make use of: Classical detective fiction, hardboiled detective fiction, the police procedural/novel, the thriller, and the caper story/crime novel. In this connection my thesis accounts for the particular manifestations of each of these subgenres in Like Clockwork and Daddy’s Girl. The second part of the thesis explores the manifold ways in which misogyny is portrayed in the novels, and how this representation of the abuse of women has necessitated a hybrid novel consisting of a blend of different subgenres. It is only through her bridging of different crime fiction subgenres that Orford is able to provide a wide-ranging portrayal and perception of misogyny in both individual and sociocultural terms.