Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep

Raymond Chandler’s novel, The Big Sleep, depicts female characters in a rather different light. The setting of The Big Sleep also drastically differs from The Sign of Four, contributing to the differences in characterization of women. The Big Sleep is set in 1930s Los Angeles, during the Great Depression. The setting, described as a dangerous and grim city, aids to the portrayal of the troubling characters living in the city. Carmen Sternwood, daughter of General Sternwood and younger sister to Vivian Sternwood, is an extremely interesting character to analyze. Similar to the initial description of Mary, Carmen’s immediate description is of her physical appearance. Marlowe’s first impression of her states, “…Her hair was a fine tawny wave cut

She came over near me and smiled with her mouth and she had little sharp predatory teeth, as white as fresh orange pits and as shiny as porcelain. They glistened between her thin too taut lips. Her face lacked color and didn’t look too healthy” (Chapter 1). This description of Carmen differs from Watsons description of Mary, for it is far more negative. This creates the sense for readers, under Marlowe’s narration and impression, that Carmen is not ideally beautiful. Marlowe’s description of Carmen is animalistic. He describes her, unlike a typical female, and rather as a creature with “sharp predatory teeth”. Carmen is, unlike Mary, immediately sexualized by the male narrator. Marlowe describes, “She put a thumb up and bit it. It was a curiously shaped thumb, thin and narrow like an extra finger, with no curve in the first joint. She bit it and sucked it slowly, turning it around in her mouth like a baby with a comforter” (Chapter 1). Carmen is not only sexualized as a female character, she is a woman in her mid twenties, being compared to a baby. This comparison, when being first introduced to Carmen, sets up her character for having no agency or

In 1930’s America, women began to explore a new sense of independence, especially in large cities such as Los Angeles. In the previous decade, women were given the right to vote, which created a new culture of liberated women with political agency. Alain Giami and Gert Hekma’s piece, “Sexual Revolutions”, discusses the history of sexual revolutions in the early 20th century due to a climate of political and social reform. Giami and Hekma note, “In the end, the main influence was the mass of people that wanted to be free from restrictions of the past, whether they were religious, legal, medical, familial, or political. Women demanded access to abortions, contraceptives in order to enjoy a free sexual life outside marriage and an end to sexual abuses and patriarchy, gay men came out of the closet, sex laws were changed, and the authority of clergy and psychiatry was questioned” (Giami, Hekma, 9). In America, that attitude and stigma surrounding female sexuality was changing. Women felt more empowered, and able to express their sexuality without the repercussions of being ostracized by institutions. Carmen’s overt sexual behavior does not get her in any sort of legitimate trouble or danger, for it was a time period of many women experimenting with sex and pleasure. This differs drastically from the time period and setting of The Sign of