Both the landlady and crime & punishment fall under most conventions of the thriller and mystery genres. These genres are established predominantly by the author deliberately withholding important information in the plot. This ensures the readers …show more content…
Both stories also have open endings that allow the reader to predict what happens next based on the signposts the author included in the text. In the Landlady, we can reasonably assume that Billy Weaver has just been poisoned and is about to be ‘stuffed’ by the taxidermist landlady even though the author does not depict this. In crime and punishment we can also reasonably assume that Janet’s husband is having an affair with the secretary while Janet is bed-ridden. This structure is also complementary to the genre because it maintains suspense and mystery. The Landlady has a regular short story structure with an orientation, a series or complications, a climax and a resolution. The orientation is followed by a very sharp and rapid rise in the sequence of complications. Crime & Punishment also has a regular short story structure. The rise from the sequence of complications to the climax is not as high as The Landlady. This is an important element for this narrative because it ensures the climax is