Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender

Composers use distinctive voices in their texts to enable us to shape our understanding of characters and their situation. Marele Day, in her novel The Life and Crimes of Harry Lavender (LACOHL), uses the literary form of hardboiled detective fiction to confront our perception of the roles of men and women in society and presents us with characters that use distinctive voices in different situations revealing much about themselves and their relationship with others. Day focuses on three main distinctive voices which are the voice of two narrators, being Claudia Valentine and Harry Lavender, the voice of social criticism, with constant reference to Sydney and the female voice, the voice of Claudia Valentine a strong female detective. The effects of distinctive voices are also explored in the article A Little Walk for Jem by Chris Hampson, NBC news. While the prevalent themes in the core text are gender roles, corruption and resistance, Hampson explores the opposite themes of pain and healing.   Each of the composers of these texts effectively use distinctive voices to present their ideas and reveal different ways of looking at the world.

Marele Day has created powerful characters who are clearly defined by their distinctive voices and these characters fulfil their roles within the novel of the crime fiction genre. She utilizes crime fiction genre to create a unique and strong voice of the two narrators, Claudia Valentine and Harry Lavender. Day employs a first person narrative representing both the distinctive voices; however, the italicised chapters portraying Lavender’s voice help to provide dramatic irony and to involve the responder in Claudia’s investigation. The voice of Claudia Valentine is unique and original, she is an independent and strong female investigator living and working in Australia’s largest city, Sydney. Day has created a distinct voice that is appealing to the reader. This voice is believable because of its lack of formality as she often...