Mapping London in Peter Ackroyd's Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem: Promenades into a Murderer's Mind

Abstract

This article explores the concept of violence in Peter Ackroyd's novel titled Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem. The relationship between the protagonist and the city is considered to be the source of violence in the novel. As this work points out, it is the physical and psychological forces prevailing in the socio-economic conditions of nineteenth century Victorian London which gave birth to, fed, and continually encouraged the ruthless serial killer for the next massacre. Yet the reader can decipher the true identity of this human monster only at the end of the novel. It is actually Elizabeth Cree, who has overcome all the difficulties in her life, realised her childhood dreams and become a successful music hall actress, and is now performing her art of murder to be appreciated by Londoners in the city, which is depicted as a macrocosmic theatre stage. Since the murderess disregards her victims' ethnic, class, gender and age diversities, the reader hardly understands what motivates her to kill, and cannot establish a logical cause-effect relationship behind the murders. The use of postmodern narrative techniques in the novel's plot structure enables the author not only to challenge the norms of traditional detective fiction and reconstruct the genre but also to make the reader reconsider the concept of crime and criminal psychology which are based on prejudices and presumptions. Consequently, this article deals with such questions as: Did London in the Victorian Era offer its inhabitants equal socio-economic, artistic opportunities? Or did the city act like a monster gnashing and spitting out its poor, weak, needy inhabitants, especially women? Is it possible to associate London's peculiar history and identity with those of the serial killer? And, what happens when the city, whose name is derived from a word meaning “fierce,” becomes the mindscape of a lower-class character who has been brought up with pure hatred?

Keywords

• Peter Ackroyd
• The Limehouse Golem
• City
• Violence
• Serial-killer