Devianna Hill

Proposal for Project 1

My thesis will basically be about the genre of thrillers. I will explain what it is like. The genre
thriller is basically a genre of literature that is dark, attention absorbing, and suspense driven
with twisted and unexpected plots. thrillers are identified by suspense, which is a natural good
feeling or obsession over what is next to come, mixed with being anxious, expectation, and
sometimes terror. Normally when watching or reading something that represents genre thrillers,
people will experience excitement, on edge, and deep interest. writers or authors are driven to 3
make their thriller arts to have the primary goal to keep viewers interested or on their toes.
Whatever feelings are being shown from viewers, are from unpredictable occurrences that make
the viewers think about a certain character's actions. All these feelings add up to suspense, which
builds up to a climax. Thrillers can be connected or have subgenres that are connected to it,
being psychological thriller, action thriller, crime thriller, science fiction thriller, and etc. For
centuries the genre thriller has always kept viewers on their toes with built up tension when it
came down to suspense with crime or conspiracies with revenge. “when it comes to thrillers,
many think of Alfred Hitchcock and his movies, like Psycho (1960) and Frenzy (1972), that
contains storylines of embezzlement, murder, wrong accusations, and more” (Pribbenow, 2017).
the genre of thrillers has been around since the stories of Homer's Odyssey and epic thriller
poems. This particular poem is about Odysseus and his voyage trying to get back to his wife, and
having to fight with a Cyclops, and having encounters that create suspense. Also the European
fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood represents the “psycho-stalker theme” thriller, which traces all
the way back to the 10th century. Given that it is about a little girl that is walking the woods and
tells a stranger wolf where she is going, he follows her and ties up her grandma and dresses up
like her grandma. This story causes suspense or wonder if the little girl will survive. Let’s take
the movie Fractured, that represents thriller and psychological thriller. The movie is about a
father who has schizophrenia, who is desperately searching for his wife and daughter after not
seeing them while waiting in the hospital. The family finds themselves going to the hospital after
the daughter injured her arm. They are checked in, and the wife and daughter are taken to go get
a CAT scan. As hours go by, the man tries his best to bring out what he believes is a scandal and
wants to expose the hospital. The suspense in this movie is kind of played in the parts when he
asks around for his family and the staff are kind of concerned and wanting to help and kind of
hiding something from him. What’s really not helping the man is that, when he and his family
supposedly checked in, his daughter's name isn’t on the list, it's his, and he is the one with an
injury on his head. Now the staff is concerned for the man, and sooner or later it is dismissive of
him, which causes frustration for the character himself and the audience. Being that the man has
schizophrenia, he always blacks out and always affects what he thinks, feels, and behaves. At the
end of the movie, it is shown that he killed his family and who he thought he saved from the
hospital he took a random patient and drove off with them into the sunset. Thrillers have
progressed over time and are drawing more and more fan audiences. There have been studies
showing that people who are found to like thrillers or the reason why people do and are going to
like thrillers is because “As humans we are uncertain of our mortality and thrillers tap into that
innate fear. As social mammals, we have the power to experience and feel fear as characters on
the cinema screen do” ( Laight, 2017). Those are a few of the reasons why people are drawn to
the thriller genre. Now when it comes to thrillers being connected or having subgenres, it would
be necessary to say that there are quite a few. As mentioned before, you have psychological
thriller, action thriller, crime thriller, science fiction thriller, and horror thriller. Psychological
thrillers are typically about the main character, who represents both the protagonist and the
antagonist. They are both, being that this specific thriller is about a person having extreme
psychological disorders. In psychological thrillers, these characters are seen to be psychopaths or
people with split personalities. What makes it all tie in to become a thriller is the conflicts they
have with strangers or other characters. Crime thrillers are thrillers mainly having their primary
focus on crime and justice. “..usually with topics like murder, kidnapping, drugs, robbery, mistaken
identity, etc. Usually the main character is a person who is fighting for justice, like a cop, lawyer,
special agent, or even superhero” (Literary Terms, 2022). Crime thrillers are basically about the main
character having to fight justice against serious worldly crimes. Just like if you take the movie Taken
which is the main character who is an officer, who has to stop the people who did crime, by
kidnapping his daughter. Action thrillers kind of overlaps with crime thrillers, being that it involves
the main character being someone that has to face physical tasks that are conflicts and challenges.
When it comes to the main character trying to overcome their conflicts they normally have a
protagonist and nearly have a small chance of success. Science thrillers are normally fictional with a
plot occuring in the present set in the real world. In majority cases the “Story must be plot-driven,
page-turning, with some (or a lot of) action” (Monkey C Media, 2019). The action packed plot has to have
science or medicine intertwined with it. Lastly horror thrillers normally use supernatural elements to bring
about fear, terror, disgust, and other similar feelings. “They may include supernatural elements (ghosts,
demons, monsters, curses) or focus on things like crime, morality, nightmares, psychological terrors,
and so on” (Literary Terms, 2022). A horror thriller is like an action thriller where it can overlap with
other thrillers, being that they are both dependent on the plotline. The genre thriller basically permits
readers and viewers to let their own intense mixed emotions entertain them to what is going on in the
story.
Monkey C Media. (2019, May 16). What is SciThri. Science Thrillers. Retrieved October 18,
2022, from
https://www.sciencethrillers.com/what-is-scithri/#:~:text=Science%20Thrillers%3A%20Usuall
y%20fiction%20%28novels%20or%20short%20stories%29,historical%20fiction%20science%
20thrillers%20do%20exist%20%28e.g.%20Deadly%29.

Thriller: Definitions and examples. Literary Terms. (2017, September 16). Retrieved October
18, 2022, from https://literaryterms.net/thriller/