Quando manca il detective. La presa in carico dell’investigazione in due racconti americani di fine Ottocento

A Whisper in the Dark” by Louisa May Alcott (1877) and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892) offer an interesting, and not sufficiently investigated, perspective from the point of view of crime studies. Too intelligent and complex to be labelled as simple genre literature, and courted by gender studies, the two stories more aptly belong to Literature tout court, although many features normally lead to place them on the shelves of sensational, thriller, or mystery. The reading I propose stems from the desire to give voice to the two protagonists not only as victims of physical and psychological violence, but as active subjects and real Private Eyes within the narrative.