Use of Metaphor in The Big Sleep
Raymond Chandler wrote The Big Sleep as a piece of hard boiled detective fiction. This style was a reaction to the high style of detective stories such as those involving Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple. Writers often set hard boiled detective novels in a gritty world where everyone has a past. In The Big Sleep, Chandler keeps this edgy, lower class tone right down to the objects he utilizes for comparisons in his metaphors.
Chandler is highly precise in his word choice and diction. Through his language his is able to craft a world that I as the reader am able to visualize. When I see this world, I see a black and white world filled with real characters who live life on the mean side of the streets. When I first read The Big Sleep as a reader who pays little attention to style, I was practically unaware of Chandler's precision in creating this mental image for his reader. However upon a second read, I began to notice that the reason I was able to have such a vivid mental image of this hard edged world is that Chandler's detail and imagery maintains this picture right down to his metaphors.
Part of the attempt of hard boiled detective novels is to be more realistic partly in response to the audience the fiction was being written for which was a more working class audience that read magazines in which these writers often published this fiction. So, Chandler to be true to both his audience and the genre utilizes commonplace objects in his metaphors. This can be seen in metaphors such as "like the buzzing of bees" (218) which is not only a sound which any audience would most likely be familiar with but also a rather plain description utilized to create the metaphor unlike one that might be placed in a romantic poem for instance. Some of the other commonplace metaphors that Chandler use include: "like a window-dresser getting the effect of a new twist of a scarf around a dummy's neck" (225), "as if I was some kind of strange beast escaped from a traveling circus" (207), "like light filtered through an aquarium tank"(8), "like wildflowers fighting for life on a bare rock"(7), "like a fresh fall of snow at Lake Arrowhead" (17) "like a puppy at the fringe of a rug"(20), "like a footbridge over a gully" (33).
Richard Wilbur's use of imagery and extended metaphor in "The Writer" help to reveal the that an individual may run into obstacles, but perseverance will help them reach past them.
In the film version of The Big Sleep, Howard Hawks invents scenes and characters that do not appear in Raymond Chandler's novel. No rare bookstore trist, no rough and ready female cabdriver, no winking cigarette girl grace the pages of his book; Marlowe and Vivian never talk of horses; and Carmen's always naked. But not in the film. In the film, she wears clothes, Marlowe is a jockey, Vivian is a horse, and all these characters appear. Faulkner, Brackett, and Furthman write these elements into the screenplay. But they do not develop ideas the text does not already suggest. The ideas are there--just evolved into new species that echo the original animal. Hawks had to do it, for the Production Code forbid directors to present any material that was overtly sexual, violent, vulgar or otherwise, profane. Therefore, since the Hays Office regulated what Hawks could present on film, his writers embedded the censored material in new forms. Todd McCarthy explains that, "the writers . . . and director . . . extract[ed] the maximum character and suggestiveness from every situation" (387). In other words, they invented and modified scenes and created characters while Hawks manipulated the mise-en-scene to suggest the forbidden ideas in Chandler's novel.
Film Noir is a genre of distinct and unique characteristics. Mostly prominent in the 40s and 50s, the genre rarely skewed from the skeletal plot to which all Film Noir pictures follow. The most famous of these films is The Big Sleep (1946) directed by Howard Hawks. This film is the go to when it comes to all the genre’s clichés. This formula for film is so well known and deeply understood that it is often a target for satire. This is what the Coen brothers did with 1998’s The Big Lebowski. This film follows to the T what Film Noir stands for.
Metaphors and Similes are often used in this story, so the reader has a better image of the setting, this is something, and I find Connell did incredibly well, for instance when he refers to the darkness of the night like moist black velvet, the sea was as flat as a plate-glass and it was like trying to see through a blanket.
In response to Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep, I have just one question. Why all the similes? There isn't a single page in the novel that doesn't display this annoying literary device. Everything is "like this" or "like that." It never ends! Similar to decoding a secret message that isn't difficult to understand, but nevertheless tiring due to the overwhelming amount of messages, the novel is frustrating to read. The following analysis acknowledges Chandler's creativity in developing his main character, Philip Marlowe, with his usage of simile. However, the excessive style of the novel creates a dominating force that ultimately leaves the reader unfulfilled at the end.
Often, we hear commentary about films that reading the book before watching the movie ruins the experience or that movies are never as good as the book on which it is based. The difference between forms is not as much about already knowing how the story ends as it is about the dumbing down of the work for a broader audience. However, Chandler wrote The Big Sleep as a piece of pulp fiction that was read by a large populace.
No dearth of similes exists in this book. Sometimes Chandler decorates a page with more than four. They stand out. The similes are the fragrance of the flower. The only circumstance in which no simile can be found on a page is if the page is full of dialogue. Chandler's similes function interestingly in his text &emdash; they seem to be the only art in his concise style. Some of his similes are almost silly, so they really stand out from the casual mood of the text; "his neck stuck up out of [his coat] like a celery stalk" (25). Yet others are beautiful and create very strong images such as those in Chapter Twenty-six when Marlowe is tracking Henry Jones. Marlowe picks a lock and " there was a dry click, like a small icicle breaking.
Film and literature are two media forms that are so closely related, that we often forget there is a distinction between them. We often just view the movie as an extension of the book because most movies are based on novels or short stories. Because we are accustomed to this sequence of production, first the novel, then the motion picture, we often find ourselves making value judgments about a movie, based upon our feelings on the novel. It is this overlapping of the creative processes that prevents us from seeing movies as distinct and separate art forms from the novels they are based on.
On first inspection of Raymond Chandler's novel, The Big Sleep, the reader discovers that the story unravels quickly through the narrative voice of Philip Marlowe, the detective hired by the Sternwood family of Los Angeles to solve a mystery for them. The mystery concerns the General Sternwood's young daughter, and a one Mr. A. G. Geiger. Upon digging for the answer to this puzzle placed before Marlowe for a mere fee of $25 dollars a day plus expenses, Marlowe soon finds layers upon layers of mystifying events tangled in the already mysterious web of lies and deception concerning the Sternwood family, especially the two young daughters.
The Old Man and the Sea tells the story of Santiago, a very old fisherman, and his quest to catch a fish after eighty four days of failing to catch any fish at all. When his young apprentice, Manolin, is forced to abandon him by his parents, Santiago sets out farther than he has ever traveled at sea in hopes that larger fish will be available for catching. Not only does he spend several days fighting with a great marlin that he manages to hook before finally killing him, he also battles with hungry sharks, as well as his own body, which, at times, seems to be failing him.
The poet Willis Barnstone begins a poem with this line: "Why must I always see the death in things?" My poem would begin, "Why must I always see the metaphor in things?" If I have any intellectual strength it is in seeing connections between unlikely ideas, theories, and concepts. I sit in classes, in front of the television, in front of books and my brain constantly tries to see how what I donít understand relates to, is like, compares to things I already know about. Part of the poetic process is to be on the lookout constantly for these metaphors, these comparisons between unlike things constantly, as (in a metaphorical sense) a mechanic might hear a car coming down the street and from the noise of the engine discern a kind of secret knowledge, an awareness, that is lost on other hearers.
"Small and delicately put together . . ." (5). "Tall and rangy, strong looking . . ." (17). Chandler's descriptions of Carmen and Vivian, respectively, highlight his use or misuse of the typical female stereotypes in, The Big Sleep. From the initial physical description that Chandler gives, the reader can quickly see that the women are complete opposites. Carmen lacks color and does not appear to be healthy while Vivian is "worth a stare" (17). Carmen has sharp predatory teeth while Vivian has, "hot black eyes" (17). Chandler characterizes Carmen as the petite, helpless female who needs protection. Vivian, on the other hand, is a physically impressive, powerful woman.
Santiago’s attitude seems to be that although he faces difficulties, he finds the strength inside of him to be able to overcome them. Once he hooked the marlin, Santiago comes to a realization that he cannot kill the fish quickly. Though he is faced with a problem, the old man is able to find the best of the situation. He begins to form a bond with the marlin, as he repeatedly alludes to it as his own brother. “Now we are joined together and have been since noon. And no one to help either one of us” (Hemingway 50). Santiago recognizes that he and the marlin are just inhabitants of all the tropical life in the Gulf Stream. The fact that he is able to bond with the marlin shows how much he has encountered, for the marlin is Santiago’s prey, and he surprisingly finds a relation between him and the fish. This results in the formation of a bond. The marlin changes from merely being what Santiago was attempting to hunt down, to serving as a metaphor illustrating his emotional and physical position. “Then the fish came alive, with his death in him, and rose high out of the water showing all his great length and width and all his power and his beauty. He seemed to hang in the air above the old man in the skiff. Then he fell into the water with a crash that sent spray over the old man and over all of the skiff” (Hemingway 94). The death of the marlin has great impact on Santiago...
Santiago went through many turmoil’s in his life and his story is one of wisdom in defeat from the lengthy time of which he could not catch anything to that of his loss of the marlin to the sharks after such a lengthy battle to catch it then attempt to bring it back to shore. Now I could go on and on like any other paper about all the symbolism in The Old Man and the Sea but no matter what I did while reading it, in almost every aspect it screamed out to me as an impersonation or reflection of Hemingway’s own life in a multitude of ways that no one can deny. The Old Man and the Sea was an allegory referring to the Hemingway’s own struggles to preserve his writing i...
The dream of lions, the creatures of the sea, and DiMaggio are fluent symbols throughout the story. The major theme, having pride even if there is no success, corresponds heavily with the message of life. Minor themes, like man and nature’s relationship, the circle of nature, and what being a man fully means, supplies support for that too. These words that flowed from the mind of Ernest Hemingway onto these pages and formed this story has been read by thousands. Every one of those thousands of readers have most likely been exposed to the millions of perspectives on life. This very classic of a novel is one of those millions and has been able to endure the test of time by connecting with it’s readers on a basic and deep level of the significance of