The city of San Francisco, California, in the 1920’s, provides a distinctively mysterious setting for Dashiell Hammett’s book, “The Maltese Falcon.” Hammett uses his own knowledge of the San Francisco area and experiences as an operative for Pinkerton’s Detective Agency to create a unique and suspenseful detective mystery (reference, 1997). Greed drives most of the characters, who are in pursuit of a falcon presumed to be worth thousands. This essay will examine the novels setting of San Francisco in the 1920’s; its non-fictional urban setting; Spade’s apartment and office; and will end with a brief conclusion. This paper will reveal that the setting is important in understanding, not only the protagonist, detective Samuel Spade, but also the …show more content…
Throughout the book it is described as a dark, foggy, and corrupt place. Like many other cities in the 1920’s, San Francisco was a dangerous place. The world was dealing with the aftermath of World War I—heavy debt and high unemployment rates. Due to Prohibition, buying or selling liquor had become a criminal act. As a result, bootlegging made large profits and gave rise to several large gangs. San Francisco, alongside many other large cities, fell under the control of gangsters who would pay off local authorities (Freeman; reference). Further, the stock markets crashed in the late 1920’s, jobs became even more scarce and criminal activity further escalated. Herb Caen, a columnist for the “San Francisco Chronicle,” stated that there was minimal law enforcement during this era in the city, lawyers “knew every shyster trick…City Hall, the D.A. and the cops ran the town as though they owned it…there were hundreds, maybe thousands…” of hookers (as cited in “Overview: The Maltese Falcon”). Hammett used this setting as a foundation for “The Maltese Falcon.” The greed and deceit of the characters is easily understood when taking into account the state of the economy in the late 1920’s. Further, the mistrust in authority and reliance on private detectives in the book makes sense as corruption was ramped in the police department and with government officials. As stated by detective Spade, “most things in San Francisco…[could] be bought, or taken” (Hammett, p 55). This reinforces the corrupt city setting set out by Hammett and permits the deceitful actions of the characters to be plausible to
The Great Depression of the 1930’s caused widespread poverty, but the popular culture of the time did not reflect this. People wanted to escape from this harsh time so movies, dancing and sports became very popular. Radios broadcasted boxing matches and boxers became stars. The heavyweight champion James J. Braddock aka “Cinderella Man,” gained popularity. James Braddock gained fame by winning many fights and proving everyone wrong when they said he was too old and couldn’t win.
middle of paper ... ... The hard-boiled detective fiction, The Maltese Falcon, is considered Hammett’s most famous and popular novel. Because of his previous career as a detective in one of the US’s largest professional detective agencies, he is able to bring an aura of realism with a bit of pessimism into his stories. For The Maltese Falcon, such realism is achieved using language from that social group in a style which brings an almost real feeling of action to the reader; symbolism of characters to actual events; and characterizing characters with real life human qualities.
Miami, most notably in the works of Elmore Leonard and Charles Willeford, and in the Television series MIAMI VICE, has received some of the same treatment, belatedly, or in a post- or neo- noir modality of the genre. . As Davis noted, "noir was like a transformational grammar turning each charming ingredient of the boosters' arcadia into a sinister equivalent" (38). We need to sort out those aspects of this noir/booster conflict that are generic and those that are specific to Miami. Boosterism is a fundamental feature of Miami's existence. The same paradoxes of attraction are an important part of Florida tourism. However, noir carries with it a state of mind, an atmosphere and mood, that are specific to the genre and may or may not have anything to do with the spirit of place specific to our zone.
The Pacific coast port city of San Francisco, California provides a distinctively mysterious backdrop in Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon. Unlike many other detective stories that are anchored in well-known metropolises such as Los Angeles or New York City, Hammett opted to place the events of his text in the lesser-known, yet similarly exotic cultural confines of San Francisco. Hammett used his own intricate knowledge of the San Francisco Bay Area - coupled with details collected during a stint as a detective for the now defunct Pinkerton Agency - to craft a distinctive brand of detective fiction that thrived on such an original setting (Paul 93). By examining the setting of 1920’s San Francisco in The Maltese Falcon, it becomes apparent that one of Hammett’s literary strengths was his exceptional ability to intertwine non-fictional places with a fictional plot and characters in order to produce a logical and exceedingly believable detective mystery.
Clarisse is a very smart and thoughtful character. She isn't stuck on materialistic things like other people in their society; she enjoys nature. Some personality traits would be confrontative/extroverted, knowledge-seeking, scatterbrained, curious, and knowledgeable. Because of these things, she is considered crazy and is an outcast: "I'm seventeen and I'm crazy. My uncle says the two always go together. When people ask your age, he said, always say seventeen and insane. Isn't this a nice time of night to walk?" (Bradbury 5).
Larson begins his novel “The Devil in the White City” by setting the stage, mentioning the events and people who made the fair so great. But simultaneously Larson hints at the evil lurking in the shadows. Although the reader is not fully aware of the dual nature of the human condition till Holmes’s big unveil. Larson describes Holmes as “a murderer that had moved among the beautiful things Burnham had created” (Larson 6). Chicagoans were startled by how such gruesome acts could go unnoticed for so long. The juxtaposition of...
It’s known that in some areas of the world, girls as young as 14 years old can get a child. This fact, although it’s disturbing, can become meaningful according to the setting of a story. The locations, the culture and the historical context can sometimes clarify some events that have taken place in a book. It’s the case in the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns written by Khaled Hosseini and published in 2007 in which the setting clearly impacts the plot and the characters. First of all, let’s take a look to the setting itself.
Hard-boiled detective fiction sets the scene for a cold and harsh reality. Dashiell Hammett’s, “The Girl with The Silver Eyes” is no exception to this rule. In this short story Hammett paints a picture of a brutally realistic urban center filled with characters that not many people would want to call friends. The realistic qualities of Hammett’s story are drawn from his own life’s experience working as a Pinkerton detective. The detective in “The Girl With The Silver Eyes” works for the Continental Detective Agency and is, therefore, known simply as the Continental Op. In the beginning of the story the Op professes, “a detective, if he is wise, takes pains to make and keep as many friends as possible among transfer company, express company and railroad employees” (27). This paper will examine this philosophy of the Continental Op, how he employs this approach to detective work and uncover if this approach is beneficial or disadvantageous.
The story line of Red Harvest is riddled with double-crossing characters, bootleggers and crooked authority figures that obviously challenge universal moral codes of conduct. More importantly, some characters remain more morally ambivalent then others. Although, this is a troupe of hardboiled detective novels from the time, and the Film Noir genre where nothing is as it seems, there are particular characters and events that stand out. The language and situations are so double sided that the reader is forced to question the weave of their own moral fabric. Dashiell Hammett through his writing style is able to reflect on the concerns many had at the time regarding rise in crime and deterioration of Victorian age morals, coincided with the rise of the detective Anti-hero, guilty woman (femme fatal) and vigilantism.
Irwin, John. “Unless the Threat of Death is Behind Them: Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon” Literary Imagination: The Review of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics: 341-374. Google Scholar. 08 March 2008 .
GoldenEye (1995) is the 17th installment of the James Bond 007 British espionage film series. The story follows top British MI6 agent 007, otherwise known as James Bond. The film begins as James and his fellow agent (Trevelyan) are infiltrating a Russian chemical weapons plant with the mission to destroy it. The job is botched, and his partner dies in the ensuing chaos, while 007 escapes. Years later, an international crime syndicate (led by the once thought to be dead Trevelyan) highjacks the codes for an EMP satellite weapon called GoldenEye, which can strike at targets anywhere in the world.
Is everybody born purely good inside? Or are we all filled with certain amounts of good and evil? In Lord of the Flies by William Golding a plane full of school boys lands on a deserted island, killing all the adults. With no adult supervision or civilization the boys descend back into the madness and savagery that is human nature. In Lord of the Flies by william Golding his character Simon uses spiritual power by finding out what the beast really is, showing how he failed to warn the others, how his use of the power affected the book as a whole, and how spiritual power is in the real world.
Essay on Themes Pride and Prejudice. In this novel, the title describes the underlying theme of the book. Pride and prejudice were both influences on the characters and their relationships. The.
Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” is known as the first work of detective fiction. According to Stephanie Craighill, Poe’s story, written in 1841, established a formula and themes for later detective fiction. After watching the True Detective pilot and comparing brilliant detective Cohle and Hart to Poe’s Dupin and unnamed narrator, it’s evident that these themes are still prevalent in modern detective fiction. Hence, through the inclusion of an analytical detective, incompetent and judgmental police, and intellectually inferior sidekick figures used to display the brilliance of the classical detective, True Detective and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” share similar narrative techniques, proving how the parameters Poe created
The main protagonist of the story, Elizabeth Bennet (nicknamed both Lizzy and Eliza), is the second daughter in the Bennet family. Second only to her elder sister in beauty, Elizabeth’s figure is said to be “light and pleasing,” with “dark eyes,” and “intelligent…expression” (24). At 20 years old, she is still creating her place in society. Known for her wit and playful nature, “Elizabeth is the soul of Pride and Prejudice, [she] reveals in her own person the very title qualities that she spots so easily” (“Pride and Prejudice”) in others. Her insightfulness often leads her to jump to conclusions and think herself above social demand. These tendencies lead her to be prejudice towards others; this is an essential characteristic of her role