The Pledge is a crime novella

Novella

A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...

 by Swiss

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 author Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Friedrich Dürrenmatt was a Swiss author and dramatist. He was a proponent of epic theatre whose plays reflected the recent experiences of World War II. The politically active author's work included avant-garde dramas, philosophically deep crime novels, and often macabre satire...

, published in 1958, after Dürrenmatt thought that his previous movie script, Es geschah am hellichten Tag

Es geschah am hellichten Tag

Es geschah am hellichten Tag is the title of a 1958 Swiss suspense film directed by Ladislao Vajda. In 1997, it was remade under the same title as a German TV film, directed by Nico Hoffmann. There was also a Dutch remake of the film, by Rudolf Van Den Berg, under the title The Cold Light of Day...

("It happened in broad daylight") did not have a realistic ending. That made-for-television story had demanded an appropriate ending, in line with that of a typical detective story. Dürrenmatt, however, was a critic of that genre of literature, and thus he set out to write Das Versprechen as an expression of that criticism. Although it has been absent from some subsequent editions of the novella, the title of the original edition included the telling subtitle Requiem for the Detective Novel (German: Requiem auf den Kriminalroman).

Main story

Dürrenmatt uses a first-person narrative

First-person narrative

First-person point of view is a narrative mode where a story is narrated by one character at a time, speaking for and about themselves. First-person narrative may be singular, plural or multiple as well as being an authoritative, reliable or deceptive "voice" and represents point of view in the...

 to insert himself into a frame story

Frame story

A frame story is a literary technique that sometimes serves as a companion piece to a story within a story, whereby an introductory or main narrative is presented, at least in part, for the purpose of setting the stage either for a more emphasized second narrative or for a set of shorter stories...

 as a writer of detective fiction

Detective fiction

Detective fiction is a sub-genre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator , either professional or amateur, investigates a crime, often murder.-In ancient literature:...

. However, the primary narrator is actually a character named Dr. H., a retired police chief who takes on the role of explaining to Dürrenmatt's first-person character the flaws of the detective literature genre. To do so, Dr. H. relates the story of one of his former inspectors, Matthäi, who, on his last day with the department, found himself called into an investigation of child murder. A suspect soon confessed to the crime, but knowing that the confession came only after the man was browbeaten in a relentless, 20-hour interrogation, Matthäi's keen police instincts told him that the man was not the real murderer. Matthäi felt that there was a serial killer

Serial killer

A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...

 at work, with the girl's murder being related to other child murders that had occurred in the area. However, he was alone in that assessment and the police closed the case.

Having made a solemn promise to the parents of the murdered girl that he would find the culprit, Matthäi abandoned his previous plans and continued investigating the case as a private citizen. He was warned by a psychiatrist that the murderer he sought likely did not exist, and thus he might drive himself mad with his obsession in finding the man. Matthäi, however, was undeterred.

Through shrewd detective work, and driven by a growing and near maniacal obsession with the case, Matthäi was able to construct a detailed profile of the likely killer, down to the very road the murderer would probably travel to and from his evil deeds. Matthäi purchased a gas station along the route, and then hired a housekeeper with a daughter named Annemarie, who matched the profile of the murdered girls. With Annemarie in place, living along the road as bait for the killer, Matthäi waited for the villain to come to him.

Matthäi's plan seemed to come to fruition, as one day the girl reported having encountered a man matching the profile Matthäi had constructed of the killer. She even included details that tied the man's behavior to that of a man the original murdered girl had reported seeing prior to her death. Matthäi planned to apprehend the killer the next day, having the police surround the area where Annemarie said she was to meet the man again. They had lain in wait for him, but no one ever arrived.

The failure proved to be utterly devastating for Matthäi. The police and all other outsiders were finally convinced that no other killer existed and that Matthäi's quest had been borne solely of his own madness. His relationship with Annemarie and her mother was destroyed through their discovery that despite the genuine love they had developed for him, he had seen Annemarie merely as bait for his trap. Unable to fathom how his intricate and detailed detective work had not resulted in a triumphant resolution to the case, Matthäi sank finally into insanity

Insanity

Insanity, craziness or madness is a spectrum of behaviors characterized by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity may manifest as violations of societal norms, including becoming a danger to themselves and others, though not all such acts are considered insanity...

 and alcoholism

Alcoholism

Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...

.

Only years later, far too late to be of any use to Matthäi, was the truth revealed that his instincts and detective work actually had been entirely correct. The murderer had not arrived for his meeting with Annemarie on the fateful day simply because he had been killed in a car accident while on his way to the rendezvous.

Es geschah am hellichten Tag

In the original film Es geschah am hellichten Tag, the story was directly that of the Matthäi character, rather than being framed through its retelling by Dr. H., as in Das Versprechen. At the end of the movie, Matthäi had demonstrated his concern for Annemarie by sending her and her mother away to safety before attempting to spring his final trap upon the murderer. The murderer arrived and was killed, thus vindicating Matthäi's persistence in pursuing the case and leading to a happy reunion with Annemarie at the story's conclusion.

Criticism of detective fiction

At the story's end, Dürrenmatt offers to the reader an implicit acknowledgment of the existence of the Es geschach am hellichten Tag version of Matthäi's story, by having Dr. H. explicitly mention that the tale of Matthäi would make a perfectly suitable entry into the genre of detective fiction, if only the ending were changed such that the killer arrived for his appointment with Annemarie and fell into Matthäi's trap. However, Dr. H.'s point in relating the tale is to demonstrate to the first-person narrator the folly of such fiction. The first of Dr. H.'s two main complaints about typical detective fiction is the idea that the criminal is always caught. He regards this as a relatively minor transgression, however, as even the most naive of readers would be aware that in real life, sometimes a crime is not solved. But the greater problem, to Dr. H.'s way of thinking, is the manner in which the solving of a crime is depicted in detective fiction.

In such literature, the task of solving a crime is presented in a way that makes it akin to that of solving a mathematical equation

Equation solving

In mathematics, to solve an equation is to find what values fulfill a condition stated in the form of an equation . These expressions contain one or more unknowns, which are free variables for which values are sought that cause the condition to be fulfilled...

. A properly formed equation can always be solved if enough of its variables

Variable (mathematics)

In mathematics, a variable is a value that may change within the scope of a given problem or set of operations. In contrast, a constant is a value that remains unchanged, though often unknown or undetermined. The concepts of constants and variables are fundamental to many areas of mathematics and...

 can be computed and if the mathematician possesses enough skill to handle the equation's complexity. Detective fiction often depicts crime-solving in a similar light. Thus, a naive reader of such fiction might well conclude that, even in real life, if a detective fails to solve a crime, it is either because the perpetrator executed the crime well enough to avoid leaving the necessary clues — like an equation for which not enough variables could be computed — or because the detective was not clever enough to properly locate, assemble and analyze those clues to determine what had occurred — like a mathematician who lacks the skill to handle the complexity of the equation with which he is presented.

In mentioning the idea of an alternate ending to Matthäi's story, Dr. H. is noting that with such an ending, the story would (and, in Es geschach am hellicten Tag, did) follow precisely the mathematical equation presentation typical of standard detective fiction. However, given the actual ending as related by Dr. H., Matthäi's failure to solve the crime arose solely because of an automobile accident — a completely random twist of fate

Twist of Fate

Twist of Fate may refer to:* a twist of fate, an unpredicted or random occurrence with far-reaching consequences; see Irony* "Twist of Fate" , a 2003 song recorded by Siobhán Donaghy...

 that had nothing to do with either how the perpetrator committed the crime or any lack of competence on the part of Matthäi as an investigator. In fact, Dr. H. describes Matthäi as having been an investigative genius at a level unmatched even by fictional detectives. According to Dr. H., the sad story of Matthäi demonstrates that contrary to the mathematical precision usually presented in a detective novel, the outcome of true police detective work finds itself far more subject to random chance, coincidence and events entirely outside of the control of either the criminal or the investigator.

Editions in English

• The Pledge London: Jonathan Cape
  Jonathan Cape
  Jonathan Cape was a London-based publisher founded in 1919 as "Page & Co" by Herbert Jonathan Cape , formerly a manager at Duckworth who had worked his way up from a position of bookshop errand boy. Cape brought with him the rights to cheap editions of the popular author Elinor Glyn and sales of...
  
  , 1959
• The Pledge New York: Alfred Knopf
  Alfred Knopf
  Alfred Knopf is the name of:*Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. , founder of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., the publishing company*Alfred A. Knopf, Jr. , son of Alfred A. Knopf, Sr.*Alfred A. Knopf or Knopf Publishing Group, subsidiary of Random House...
  
  , 1959
• The Pledge New York: New American Library
  New American Library
  New American Library is an American publisher based in New York, founded in 1948; it produced affordable paperback reprints of classics and scholarly works, as well as popular, pulp, and "hard-boiled" fiction. Non-fiction, original, and hardcopy issues were also produced.Victor Weybright and Kurt...
  
  , 1959
• The Pledge Harmondsworth (UK): Penguin
  Penguin Books
  Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
  
  , 1964
• The Pledge New York: Berkeley
  University of California, Berkeley
  The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
  
  , 2000
• The Pledge translated by James Agee. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2006. ISBN 9780226174372

Film adaptation

The novel's version of the main story was adapted to film in 2001 as The Pledge

The Pledge (film)

The Pledge is a 2001 American mystery film directed by Sean Penn. It is based on the 1958 novella Das Versprechen: Requiem auf den Kriminalroman , by Swiss author Friedrich Dürrenmatt...

, starring Jack Nicholson

Jack Nicholson

John Joseph "Jack" Nicholson is an American actor, film director, producer and writer. He is renowned for his often dark portrayals of neurotic characters. Nicholson has been nominated for an Academy Award twelve times, and has won the Academy Award for Best Actor twice: for One Flew Over the...

 and directed by Sean Penn

Sean Penn

Sean Justin Penn is an American actor, screenwriter and film director, also known for his political and social activism...

.

Class Room Use

The novel is widely used in many German Study Courses in Universities. The novel is used in many literature studies too, analyzing the context and use of symbols.