An Unsuitable Job for a Woman: Two Detectives
Uploaded by Brown6857 on Nov 15, 2000
While reading, An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, by P.D. James and Indemnity Only, by Sara Paretsky, one is given the opportunity to slip in to the life of a female private detective and experience the aspects of what occurs during the process of a murder investigation as seem through the eyes of two very independent women. P.D. James’s character of Cordelia Gray and Sara Paretsky’s character of V.I. Warshawski are two private investigators that display great passion for their jobs and will stop at nothing in order to close their cases. But, are inexperienced Cordelia Gary and wisecracking Warshawski prime examples of private investigators or are they two naïve women who have entered an occupation where compassion and sympathy are two traits that are better left unused.
Both Cordelia and Warshawski display great ability as women to enter a world of hate, lies and murder and take on roles that traditionally only men dared to enter. But, as they sift though evidence left behind by unknown assailants and pry into the lives of dead and living strangers, are these women really living lives of their own or are they becoming to emotionally entangled in a web of self destruction. Putting their lives in harms way in search of justice, an oath that they as private detectives have never took.
Both women are clearly excellent detectives; they solved their cases and reaped the self-gratification that comes from hard work and determination. In spite of that, are these two women really doing themselves any justice by restraining from the certain pleasures in life they yearn to experience and enjoy but have sustained from due to the career choice they have chosen, as seem in Cordelia’s reflection of what her life may have been like if she had chosen to attend an university and Warshawski’s reflection in the park of the mother and her children. Both women are still at an age where these reflections can still become reality, yet they have chosen to continue pursuing a career that hampers their ability to achieve these personal goals.
Maybe their becoming to emotionally involved in their cases is a result of their search for a way to compensate for the void their career choice has left in their lives. Both Cordelia and Warshawski became a little too preoccupied with their cases. Cordelia became so involved she was sleeping in the same house in which the...