Essay Comparing The Big Sleep And Chinatown

Ending in 1919, World War I instilled a sense of disenchantment in the United States. Immediately following the war, the cynical and morally declining “Lost Generation” arose. The attitude of the “Lost Generation” continued on into the 1930s, which were marked by the Great Depression. The overall disillusionment of the time period is evident in both the novel The Big Sleep and the film Chinatown. Set in Los Angeles in the late 1930s, Raymond Chandler’s novel The Big Sleep portrays the corruption present in all. No single person is exempt from evil; the newspaper writers, policemen, and even the protagonist of the novel are all corrupt. Also set in Los Angeles in 1937, Roman Polanski’s film Chinatown depicts a similarly corrupt society in which laws and rules are nonexistent. The external descriptions and atmosphere of Los Angeles in both The Big Sleep and Chinatown reflect the moral ambiguity of the time. More specifically, the weather and dark imagery in The Big Sleep and the color and smoke in Chinatown

represent the corruption and cynicism present in Los Angeles.
Throughout The Big Sleep, Los Angeles is under a constant threat of rain. The novel starts immediately with a description of the weather. The narrator, Philip Marlowe, notes, “It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills” (Chandler 3). This description sets the scene for the entire novel, as the weather fluctuates, but always reverts to rain. The perpetual gloominess of Los Angeles is restated soon after, when Marlowe visits General Sternwood in the greenhouse. Marlowe describes:
The air was thick, wet, steamy and larded with the cloying smell of tropical orchids in bloom. The glass walls and roof were heavily misted and big drops of moisture splashed down on the plants. The light had an unreal greenish color, like light filtered through an aquarium tank. (7).
The greenhouse represents Los Angeles as a whole. The humidity and dampness are oppressive, as is rainy Los Angeles.
The novel proceeds with rain as the dominant descriptor of setting, creating a dark and gloomy atmosphere.

Soon after meeting Vivian Sternwood, the dangerous femme fatale, Marlowe says, “Thunder was crackling in the foothills now and the sky above them was purple-black. It was going to rain. The air had the damp foretaste of rain” (21). Even though he does not know it yet, Marlowe has just encountered trouble. The weather mirrors the events of the novel, with bad weather signifying confusion and evil; conversely, sunny weather represents clarity and progress in solving the mystery. For example, a breakthrough seems to be made after Marlowe discovers that the body of Geiger has been moved. The worst seems to be over and “the next morning [is] bright, clear and sunny” (43). The pleasant weather is only temporary, however, and gloominess prevails soon after. Just as the people of Los Angeles are stuck in corruption, the city of Los Angeles is caught up in

rain.
Generally, rain symbolizes renewal and cleansing, but Raymond Chandler uses it in the opposite manner. In The Big Sleep, it is constantly raining, which is unusual for Southern California. Even Marlowe notes that “it [is] too early in the fall for…rain” (30). The rain should be cleansing the city of its evil, but it remains impure. Chandler’s use of imagery emphasizes the lonely, dark expanse of Los Angeles. When Marlowe drives through the city, he describes:
We drove away form Las Olindas through a series of little dank beach towns with shack-like houses built down on the sand close to the rumbles of the surf and larger houses built back on the slopes behind. A yellow window shone here and here, but most of the houses were dark. A smell of kelp came in off the water and lay on the fog. The tires sang on the moist concrete of the boulevard. The world was a wet emptiness. (149).
Los Angeles is traditionally known for its sunshine and beauty, but Chandler portrays it in the opposite manner. Descriptive words such as “dank”, “dark”, and “moist” make the setting a dirty, lonely place that the narrator feels lost in. This bleak atmosphere contributes to a ceaseless cynicism towards life that is summed up in the ending. Marlowe’s outlook on life is summed up when he states, “What [does] it matter where you lay once you [are] dead? In a dirty sump or in a marble tower on top of a high hill? You [are] dead, you [are] sleeping the big sleep… You just [sleep] the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell. Me, I was part of the nastiness now” (230). The weather and descriptive imagery create a sense of darkness that represents society’s corruption and cynical outlook on life.