Crime Fictions in Vajirayanna and Vajirayanna wiset and Its Connotation on the Pursuit of Knowledge of Siamese Elites

Abstract

Crime fiction genre came to Siam during the reign of Rama V. Among the publications that published and distributed these fictions were Vajirayanna and Vajirayanna wiset. Both of these periodicals served cultivating the nova Siamese elite that what they should be in the overcoming of Western modernity. Crime fictions that published in both titles carefully defined their self-consciousness as someone who is suitable in becoming the modern. Namely, their status were to be elevated equal with western modernity that they highly revered; and simultaneously, they opined that western modernity is not appropriate for the plebian. In perspective of the elite, low social status has the same meaning with lower learning capability. The plebian is thus not suitably coupled with western modernity and should only be worthy of recipients of a benevolence from those who have a supreme merit, i.e. the enlightened elite.