"time Is Always A Significance Factor In Crime Stories." Discuss.

"Time is always a significant factor in crime stories.' Discuss the importance of crime in two of your set texts. 1 hour [25 marks]

In both Atkinson`s "When Will There Be Good News?" ("WWTBGN") and Shakespeare`s "Hamlet", time holds considerable meaning in shaping the scenes in which the crimes take place. Time is a significant feature because it forms an integral part of the setting and often aides the writer`s build-up of tension. Whilst in "WWTBGN", the crime and its repercussions stretch out over decades, one may get the sense from "Hamlet" that the overarching crime of regicide and its ramifications are perhaps compressed into a few weeks or months. Thus, the way in which time is manipulated can help the writer to convey a range of messages about how crime can lead to complete disorder and chaos and how a traumatised victim can be affected by what they witness for the rest of their lives.

The setting of Atkinson`s novel appears to juxtapose with the brutality of the serial killer, Andrew Decker. In the exposition of the novel, explicit inferences can be made about the time of day and the season in which the main crime scene is set: `The head rising up from the tarmac seemed to get trapped between the thick hedges that towered above their heads like battlements`. This suggests that the crime takes place in broad daylight which is often associated with feeling untroubled, relaxed and a safer time of day. Furthermore, the full growth of the hedges indicates that the season is summer, a time when people are likely to spend a lot of time outside, perhaps giving people a false sense of security. The simile `like battlements` highlights how they are almost trapped and that their fate is encountering danger is somehow inevitable. The intensity of the summer heat `rising up from the tarmac` could be seen as oppressive and disorientating, perhaps conjuring a sense of foreboding and heightening the tension. The time setting is, in some ways, atypical of traditional crime writing, because a large number of crimes in crime literature take place in the dead of the night, as with many of Agatha Christie`s novels such as "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd". Atkinson nonetheless utilises the fact that the crime occurs in broad daylight to highlight the remorselessness and insensitivity of the serial killer as well as to accentuate the brutality of the murders. Joanna, the only survivor from the encounter with Andrew Decker, suffers from the psychological condition "survivor`s guilt" for the rest of her life for not `sav[ing] the baby`, and as time is flashed forward to the imminent release of Decker from prison, the news that `Andrew Decker has been released from prison` understandably terrifies her. This grave statement is delivered to Dr Hunter (Joanna) in italics, which emphasises to the reader the appalling news and how Decker serving lifetime in prison has not sufficiently extinguished her fear nor compensate for the loss of her family. Perhaps this post-modern element of the fast-forwarding of time illustrates how Atkinson is trying to question whether true justice can be achieved if a serial killer is once again allowed to roam freely and whether a psychopath is capable of rehabilitation. Potentially Atkinson is thus suggesting that criminals that are deemed to be a high risk to society should be more closely monitored.

Unlike Atkinson, Shakespeare makes use of the notion of the "witching hour" in "Hamlet". The opening of the play is set in the middle of the night, aligning the beginning of the play with the trope of darkness. Additionally, this specific time is also when the ghost of Old Hamlet makes appearances. The ghost serves the function of explaining the modus operandi of Claudius using poison to kill Old Hamlet as well as `Swear!` a kind of oath, to ensure that justice is secured on a cosmic level. Although the inclusion of supernatural activity is rather unconventional for crime literature, the "witching hour" would have most likely evoked fear in Elizabethan and Jacobean audiences because it was the time of night usually in the early hours of the morning where witches, ghosts and demons were thought to be their most powerful. It could also be said that this time of night is an ideal time for criminals to carry out their odious acts with less people likely to be about. However, the ghost reveals that Old Hamlet was killed in the afternoon at his `secure hour` sleeping in an orchard, which implies that this was a time when Old Hamlet was relaxed and felt that he did not need to take any precautions. Shakespeare uses time as a metaphor for the fact that `The time is out of joint`, suggesting that the crime of regicide has dislocated the natural order and progression of time and a dysfunctional political system exists under King Claudius, therefore Hamlet is left to restore order by himself. It is also significant that "Hamlet" was believed to be written at the end of the Elizabethan era and towards the beginning of the Jacobean era, and therefore seems to echo the politically turbulent atmosphere at the time the play was written.

Time can be concluded as an important factor in crime stories which helps to draw attention to other significant crime tropes, including betrayal, suffering and a sense of claustrophobia in "Hamlet" and juxtaposition of the time setting with the brutality of the crime and the psychological effect of "survivor`s guilt" in "WWTBGN". Time is manipulated effectively in both works of crime literature to serve importance in creating an effective time setting.