How Does Chandler Set Limitations On Anti-Normativity?

Noir is an extremely complex genre in which all social and cultural norms are challenged. This genre is filled with crime and corruption in order to shed light on the reality of the world and how anti-normative life can actually be. In the novel The Big Sleep, author Raymond Chandler uses the darkness and immorality of noir in order to set limitations on anti-normativity. Chandler portrays the subject of anti-normativity as someone or something that strays from the common aspects of society such as patriarchy, benevolent parenthood, monogamous and loving marriages, appropriate gender roles, and repressed sexuality. The most prominent anti-normative characters in The Big Sleep who Chandler uses to illustrate this idea are Phillip Marlowe, Vivian Sternwood, the general, and Arthur Gwynn Geiger.

In order to set limitations on anti-normativity, the main character in the novel, Phillip Marlowe, is affiliated with crooked people and is surrounded by a world of corruption and deceit, yet, Chandler allows him to maintain a

somewhat ethical code. For instance, when Marlowe returns home, he finds Carmen lying undressed in his bed. He says to her:
“ ‘I appreciate all you’re offering me. It’s just more than I could possible take. Doghouse Reilly never let a pal down that way. I’m your friend. I won’t let you down—¬¬in spite of yourself. You and I have to keep on being friends, and this isn’t the way to do it’ ”(155).
Marlowe is insisting that he and Carmen should remain friends and not do anything that could possibly jeopardize that friendship.

If he were to sleep with Carmen, he would not only be disrespecting his client, her father, but he would be aligning himself with Carmen’s inappropriate and scandalous behavior. Since Marlowe was not even tempted by the young, beautiful creature lying naked in his bed, Chandler is proving that Marlowe’s character is not as much of a part of the immoral, crime-filled world that he is surrounded by. Even though Marlowe has a number of dishonest traits, the small part of him that is still clinging on to morality is why Chandler allows him to live throughout the entirety of the novel. Thus, Chandler is setting limitations for anti-normativity. He is asserting the fact that it is acceptable for most people to have scandalous and immoral tendencies, as long as they don’t cross the very thin line into completely deviant

behavior.
While Marlowe’s moral code is used to set limitations for anti-normativity, Chandler uses Vivian Sternwood’s devotion to her family in order to assert another important aspect of maintaining a fairly conventional lifestyle. During an exchange with Vivian, Marlowe asks her if she worries about her little sister, Carmen, and she admits:
“ ‘I think she’s all I do worry about. I worry about Dad in a way, to keep things from him…we’re his blood. That’s the hell of it…I don’t want him to die despising his own blood. It was always wild blood, but it wasn’t always rotten blood’ ”(148).