Women of Mystery: Women Writers and Their Roles in Mystery Literature Progressing from the Victorian Sensation Novel to Present

English writer Sarah Stickney Ellis wrote during the Victorian Era, “...the women of England are deteriorating in their moral character, and that false notions of refinement are rendering them less influential, less useful, and less happy than they were” (Ellis 10). In fact, much later in history, the “American Dream” and the nuclear family were built upon the same “false notions of refinement” and the acceptance of women as devoted homemakers. However, what we can observe in women-authored literature reflects an entirely different site for women’s activity: the mystery novel. This project examines three mystery works written by women at inflection points across three different centuries of modernity: Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Aurora Floyd (1863), Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express (1934) and Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl (2012). I will examine how the experience of being a female writer in these three texts and specific moments impacted each author’s text, as well as the female character dynamics within each text. I have found that each author presents at least one strong, cunning, passionate and unpredictable female character. I argue that the mysteriousness of this character’s nature serves to critique the social assumptions regarding women’s roles specific to the novel’s period. I have been surprised to find a less dramatic difference across these critiques than I expected before starting the project. In other words, women’s capabilities and intellectual abilities are still drastically underestimated according to all three novels regardless of the difference in time period. Through the shape of their plots and character relationships, Braddon, Christie, and Flynn consistently configure dynamic female characters in their novels as insane, crazy or mad. This project takes the form of a formal essay, broken into three parts. Each part focuses primarily on one author, her work, and her characters’ roles, relationships, dynamics, and expectations. These works leave a lasting impact for both female writers and those readers who know how much women’s roles and actions contribute to a successful contemporary society