Literary Precedents for Sacred Clowns

This Study Guide consists of approximately 7 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Sacred Clowns.

Literary Precedents for Sacred Clowns

This Study Guide consists of approximately 7 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of Sacred Clowns.
This section contains 137 words
(approx. 1 page at 300 words per page)
Buy the Sacred Clowns Short Guide

The literary precedents for Sacred Clowns are American realism, the detective novel, and the American local color tradition. Hillerman continues his realistic portrayal of Chee and Leaphorn as they solve the two murders.

Since the murders take place in different jurisdictions, Hillerman suggests something of the complexity of law enforcement in Indian Country as the two policemen interact with other law enforcement agencies. His tightly-written style owes much to novelists such as Hemingway and the hard-boiled school of mystery writers, including Raymond Chandler. But Hillerman often enhances the detective genre with his emphasis on local color. He attempts to present the native peoples of the region sometimes humorously, always sympathetically, to give his readers a sense of the Native Americans' humanity. His novels render ethnographic detail as accurately as do many scholarly texts.

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This section contains 137 words
(approx. 1 page at 300 words per page)
Buy the Sacred Clowns Short Guide
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Sacred Clowns from Gale. ©2005-2006 Thomson Gale, a part of the Thomson Corporation. All rights reserved.