Analysis Of Dashiell Hammett's The House On Turk Street

In Erik Larson’s essay, The Devil in the White City, (2003), he investigates the way that Holmes used the World fair to lure in his victims. Erik larson establishes his ideas by developing the main characters in separate plots. Larson explains how the World Fair ended up in Chicago and how it was constructed and designed, in order to connect the fair to Holmes and show how he used it to lure in his victims. This novel was intended for anybody interested in a historic crime depicted in a narrative based mystery, and its intense, optimistic tone helps the audience picture the suspense before and during the fair. This essay is going to analyze how Erik Larson used a description of blue eyes to create a theme, and develop the two main characters.

The book The Devil In the White City by Erik Larson re-tells the story of Chicago’s World Fair, while H.H. Holmes, also known as “America’s first serial killer”, emerges as a dark force within the fair. Switching back and forth between the experiences of the head fair administrator, Burnham, and the other directors along with the evils of Holmes, the reader begins to understand the world of tragedy and crime that lies behind the public’s excitement. From a devastating storm to the deaths of multiple builders, suspense builds as tragedy is followed by more tragedy. Through the use of contrasting ideas and ethical clauses highlighted by symbolisms and descriptions within the book, Erik Larson creates an underlying argument that one’s pursuit of pride and success often causes destruction and comes at the price of another’s well-being.

Larson’s, The Devil in the White City, recounts a defining time period for America. Larson sheds light on the ageless conflict: Good v.s. Evil, as he recounts the events that took place at the fair that changed America. With America falling behind in global dominances and its need to strive, Daniel Burnham tries to successfully construct the Chicago World's fair and hopes it will spark the turn of the century. As Burnham tries to builds up the White City, and while H. H. Holmes flourished in the dominant Black City, Larson takes the reader on a tour of both cities. As Holmes lives in the shadows of the Black City, he successfully murders many people without any suspicion. Holmes’s ability to manipulate, his charisma, and his bravado marks

3. In “In Cold Blood”(1965), a nonfiction novel, Truman Capote accounts for the murder of the Clutter family, residing in Holcomb, Kansas, and the events that followed. The mode of development includes Gothic themes and motifs to make the audience question the roles of the protagonists and the antagonists, “Uh-huh. But you’ll have to kill me first”, said Perry to Dick when he proposed to rape Nancy Clutter; Capote also juxtaposes between different time periods to make the audience question what had really happened in the Clutter household. This work of “new-age journalism” continually asserts that Perry killed the Clutters, although scant evidence is produced. Capote’s target audience is the people who are part of the criminal justice system and psychologists. Capote is trying to prove that all people are inherently benevolent, but when they have had traumatic events occur in their past, they have injured psyches, thus attempting to explain the formerly inexplicable murders.

New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, London, Sydney, even Rio de janeiro are exciting extravagant populous cities across the world filled with adventure and endless opportunity. Holcomb, Kansas is rightfully not mentioned in this group. This town east of the Colorado border is a stranger to even the Santa Fe Railroad that divides the community in half. Truman Capote expresses the “lonesome area” that is Holcomb in the introduction of In Cold Blood through diction and imagery.

In Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson utilizes the idea of a “devil” during a time of when Chicago was prospering to showcase the evil lurking behind the mirage of wealth and beauty. The speaker is a third person omniscient narrator who has known about Burnham and Holmes life Chicago in the late-nineteenth century. The audience is intended for readers who enjoy non-fiction thriller novels or wants to know about the historical event from different viewpoints. The purpose is to entertain the audience but also teach them about the coexistence and balance of “good” and “evil” in one city. The subject is about Chicago during the Columbian Exposition, focusing on the juxtaposition of the lives of Burnham and Holmes. The tone shifts throughout the novel between every other chapter when there is a change in character since they have different thoughts and settings. Larson uses this to emphasize the universal themes of harmonization of polar opposites. He contrasts the two demeanors of Chicago, the white city was Burnham’s fair, also known a dream land. On the other hand, the black city is Holmes’ house of terror.

The detective genre is recognizable by the mystery that it represents or establishes. Every word of a fiction novel is chosen with a purpose, and that purpose on a detective novel is to create suspense. The excerpts from The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, Murder Is My Business by Lynette Prucha, and Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley, create an atmosphere of suspense and mystery. Even though they all fit into this category, there are some differences that make each novel unique. The imagery that the authors offer in the excerpts helps the reader to distinguish the similarities and the differences.

Crime and glimpses into the heads of criminal masterminds has always been something that fascinates people. Although crime is a terrible thing, the complexity and intricacy of it is something that people love to hear about. One can turn on the news at any given time and almost certainly hear an account of some form of a crime within ten minutes. In the novel In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, an account to a perplexing crime is taken to a whole new level. The Clutter family was a charming family of four that lived in the little town of Holcomb, Kansas. They were brutally murdered with no apparent motive by Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, two men that had

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

Readers who have never picked up on the Dashiell Hammett detective novel The Maltese Falcon 1930 or seen the classic 1941 film adaptation, which follows the novel almost verbatim, can feel a strong sense of familiarity, faced for the first time in history. In this book, Hammett invented the hard-boiled private eye genre, introducing many of the elements that readers have come to expect from detective stories: mysterious, attractive woman whose love can be a trap , search for exotic icon that people are willing to kill the detective, who plays both sides of the law, to find the truth , but it is ultimately driven by a strong moral code , and shootings and beatings enough for readers to share the feeling of danger Detective . For decades , countless writers have copied the themes and motifs Hammett may rarely come anywhere near him almost perfect blend of cynicism and excitement.

In traditional hard-boiled American detective fiction there are many themes that seem to transcend all novels. One of those themes is the concept of power and the role in which it plays in the interaction and development of characters. More specifically, the role of women within the novels can be scrutinized to better understand the power they hold over the other characters, their own lives and the direction of the story. Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon exemplifies the varying ways in which female characters attempt to obtain and utilize power in hopes of influencing, manipulating and succeeding.

“The Gutting of Couffignal” is a detective fiction short story written by Dashiell Hammett that focuses on the mystery surrounding the attack on the town of Couffignal by an unknown gang, and more specifically, the robberies and murders that ensue. Hammett’s story is classified as hard-boiled fiction, which Encyclopaedia Britannica defines as a “tough, unsentimental style of American crime writing” (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica). Due to its hard-boiled nature, “The Gutting of Couffignal” mainly focuses on the issue of large-scale crime in the city. However, throughout the story, Hammett uses gender stereotyping of both the protagonist and the antagonist by the readers

Dashiell Hammett’s novel, The Maltese Falcon, is a hard-boiled detective novel; a subset of the mystery genre. Before the appearance of this sub-genre, mystery novels were mainly dominated by unrealistic cases and detectives like Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. As Malmgren states, “The murders in these stories are implausibly motivated, the plots completely artificial, and the characters pathetically two-dimensional, puppets and cardboard lovers, and paper mache villains and detectives of exquisite and impossible gentility.” (Malmgren, 371) On the other hand, Hammett tried to write realistic mystery fiction – the “hard-boiled” genre. In the Maltese Falcon, Hammett uses language, symbolism, and characterization to bring the story closer to

Dennis Lehane writes satisfyingly complex and disturbingly violent crime fiction that often crosses into thriller territory. These are not, however, cheap thrills. Even in their goriest moments, his books are grounded in rich, real-life detail. Lehane knows Boston and its denizens, and he captures the city’s subcultures beautifully -- from the hushed refinement of the old-money suburbs to the grittiness of tacky motels and bail-bond agencies. He has a unique way of presenting his mysteries with an edge-of-the-seat feeling, yet his descriptive methods brings one into his neighborhoods and gives one the feeling that they lived there their entire life.

In Raymond Chandler’s novel The Big Sleep, a private detective is trying to unravel a blackmailing case for a dying millionaire, General Sternwood. Philip Marlowe, the detective, finds that the case not only involves blackmail, but also homicide. Set and written in 1930’s America, the economic devastation of the Great Depression has a significant influence on the book’s plot, and showcases character’s struggle to retain honor and virtue in a world that revolves around profit-seeking delinquency and organized corruption. Marlowe’s work as a private detective brings him face to face with criminals of every variety, and each corresponds to a piece on the chessboard that appears repeatedly in the story. Marlowe’s symbolic identity is the well-intentioned knight, who represents the shred of chivalry that remains in a society of pawns and crooked kings, and the chess game is his combat against crime in a period of national despondency.