A Literary Analysis Of Butterflies

760 Words4 Pages
Crime fiction is extremely popular. It combines the elements of suspense and thriller, leading to the final denouement. However, throughout the decades, it has evolved to incorporate many cliché ideas. The novel “A Cage of Butterflies”, published in 1992 and written by Brian Caswell, however, incorporates several ideas that are not formalised elements of the genre, despite containing a significant proportion of elements that are archetypical of this genre. The typical crime fiction text involves an illegal act or crime that has been committed and is then investigated and the findings brought to light. The culprit is then revealed, and may or may not have to atone for their criminal act. In this case, the antagonist, Dr John Larsen is blacklisted.…show more content…
The victims are the Metamide “Babies”, a set of five 8 year-olds that possess supreme intelligence and telepathy. The culprits are Dr John Larsen and his assistant MacIntyre, and the detectives are Susan, an employee of Larsen, and the members of the “Think Tank”, a group of teenagers who have IQ’s of 150+. The crime itself is the research on the “Babies” that endangers their lives. There is the case of the antagonist, in this case Larsen, committing illegal crimes for personal fame and fortune. Quoted on page 119 “…producing genius and telepathy through an inexpensive pill… every defence department in the world would buy it” suggests that Larsen aspires to gain fortune through exploiting the side effects of a medication called Metamide. Quoted on page 39 “They would name the discovery after the discoverer. Larsen’s Syndrome” suggests that Larsen would like to have his discovery of the “Babies” named after
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