22/25 model essay on Crime unseen extract, A-Level AQA, Paper 2A

In this extract Michael Frayn evokes an intense sense of chaos and confusion in the car crash, as well as heightening the rising tension that builds to the climax. Considering that this extract is taken from near the end of the novel, as is conventional to generic crime texts, we would expect a reestablishment of order, yet instead, we are left on a disquieting cliff-hanger.

The car chase that Frayn depicts is action-heavy and the stanzas are condensed with present-tense sequential events, adding an acceleration to the mounting pace of the narrative. Moreover, an impending sense of destruction and danger is created through the exclamatory short, sharp, ‘scream’ and ‘cries from Lara’, Tony’s wife. This indicates her absolute fear of her own husband and suggests that their marital relationship is flawed and degenerating. Whilst Frayne depicts this terror in the figure of Lara, through first person narration we are allowed an insight into out narrator’s thoughts and feelings. And yet, Martin is illustrated as being much more emotionally detached and sluggish, as the ‘implications dawn on [him] rather slowly’. It can be interpreted that Frayne is demonstrating the dual responses to catastrophe and chaos in the contending depictions of Lara and Martin. The crash itself is extremely disorientating, and this is evident when Martin notices ‘someone screaming’ in the car but cannot tell whether it is ‘Lara or me, or both of us’, thereby elucidating his sense of personal detachment. Furthermore, the structural anaphora repetitively beginning, ‘The exhalation of the noise’, ‘The silence’, ‘The oddity’, creates a sequential simplistic narration further highlighting Martin’s detachment from the situation. The polysyndeton listing of the obstacles of the ‘jammed door and stuck seat belt and the angle of Lara’s left forearm’ overwhelm, creating great tension in that we don’t know whether these characters will survive. Lastly, Frayn makes us question the reliability of the narrator through hubristic statements, like, ‘I’m in control of the situation’ and ‘I’m still thinking very clearly’, which he is evidently not.

The crime itself; the theft of the Brugnel painting, seems to be born out of greed – to sell the painting and gain money. Indeed, when the crash first occurs, Martin immediately states, ‘Time to get the twine untied, and picture out’, followed by ‘Time to get the outside door open, and Lara free’. The syntax suggests that Martin values the painting over human life, divulging his immoral criminal psyche. Although he is somewhat redeemed when he hears Lara’s screams and realises ‘Lara first, twine afterwards’, which implies he does work within a moral framework, and it is the disorientation of the crash that skewered his priorities. This adds a complexity to the characterisation of Martin, the criminal, as he is neither inherently villainous nor malignant, but his moral consciousness is battling against the greed for money. Nevertheless, Martin’s preoccupation with saving the painting and rectifying its conditions is further emphasised in the penultimate paragraph, whereby he examines the bucolic details of the piece. There is a jarring juxtaposition between the rural and idyllic painted ‘man, trees, mountains, sky’, and the horrific landscape of the car crashwith the ‘orange light’ of a fire. Perhaps Frayne is making a moralistic comment on whether such a crime for materialistic wealth is worth it at the cost of the endangerment of human life and mass destruction.

Considering that the extract is from the end of the novel, as is orthodox to traditional crime fiction, we would expect Frayne to be shaping a narrative to resolve questions and stabilise order. However, Frayne inverts this trope by creating a car chase that is extremely frenzied and bewildering. There is no sense of resolution as we end on a cliff-hanger and the ‘yellow veil’s’ ‘close upon the Brugnel painting’ – a metonym for Martin’s slipping into unconsciousness perhaps. Rather than offering us a sense of comfort in seeing the natural order of society restored, the criminal punished, Frayn creates a disquieting uncertainty and distorts our expectations of the structuring of crime texts.

In conclusion, Frayne instils multiple significant crime elements in the rising tension from the climactic destruction born from the car crash, the materialistic pursuit of the Brugnel painting, and the unsettling ending of the extract, which refuses to comfort us by resolving questions, instead, raising more.