Essay about Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon

Women have different personalities and motivations, and they form relationships with men for many different reasons. Some of these reasons include love, money, and even lust and manipulation. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett is a novel about Sam Spade, who is a huge figure of the hard-boiled detective genre. Sam Spade goes on a quest to find a valuable falcon, solve murders and jump over the obstacle that surround him on a daily basis. The novel is also about the three women who surround Spade during his quest. The names of these women are Iva Archer, Effie Perine, and Brigid O’Shaughnessy, and they all have different roles in Sam Spade’s life. In The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett, Brigid O’Shaughnessy plays the role of femme fatale, Iva Archer plays the role of Spade’s unfortunate future, and Effie Perine plays the role of Spade’s right-hand woman.

"A Good Man is Hard to Find presents a masterful portrait of a woman who creates a self and a world through language." At least that is what Mary Jane Shenck thinks of the Flannery O'Connor story. Several different people have several different views of this controversial and climatic work of O'Connor's. In this paper I will take a look at these different views of different situations and characters in this book.

In the beginning of the novel, Archer acts according to the molded product he is supposed to be. Archer was proud to be a New Yorker, someone in the upper class with refined taste and morals. This ended when Countess Olenska returned to New York, in want of a divorce with her husband in Europe. The New York family wanted to prevent this divorce because of propriety. They send Archer, a lawyer, to convince Ellen against it. As the story goes, Archer falls in love with Ellen because of her mysteriousness of unconventionality. By acting as the family’s messenger, Archer “sabotages his own quest”. Due to inconvenience, Archer wants to overthrow the principles he once lived by (Hadley 37). He suddenly realized “That terrifying product of the social system he belonged to and believed in, the young girl who knew nothing and expected everything, looked back at him like a stranger through May

Her apparently duplicitous behavior is the result of growing discomforts: a young girl’s attempts to amend to cultural anticipations of womanhood. Her sins, those of pride and maybe ignorance, are those of every teenager in the country. For these sins, if they can be called sins at all, Connie pays a huge and horrifying price. Oates senses the catastrophe in her fate, eventually sympathizing with her.

The role of women in Western literature is constantly changing. In the span of less than a hundred years, it has evolved and changed into a completely different set of ideals and expectations for a female lead. In the repressed Victorian era of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, women are kept in the roles of the idealized proper woman or portrayed as sex-crazed temptresses. In Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, women are given a more dynamic role—one that drives the narrative, as opposed to reacting to it.

Dashiell Hammett is well known for his writing of the Maltese Falcon, with his original fiction character Sam Spade. Many people would think all authors brainstorm their stories, but this case is different. Dashiell Hammett’s life experiences, mainly as a Pinkerton detective, have influenced his inspiration for writing fiction detective stories. His father, an alcoholic and a womanizer, worked as a watchman, a salesman, and many other short-end jobs. At age 14, Hammett dropped out of Baltimore's Polytechnic High School to help support his family because of their current situation. He took up odd jobs that were not well paying. They all needed help with the house and financial costs. He worked as a messenger for the B&O railroad, which was the first and oldest common carrier railroad in the United States. While on the job, he began to have a taste for gambling and alcohol. Later, he established a job as a clerk with the Pinkerton National Detective

As the sun rose over the American ground on that particular May morning, no one was expecting the man who would eventually be known as the father of hard-boiled detective fiction to be born. Dashiell Hammett did not have the most ideal life, yet he would one day become an incredibly well known author of detective fiction; often, his novels would be based off of his actual life experiences. In Saint Mary’s county, Maryland, on the 27th of May, year 1894, Dashiell Hammett was born. Although he was born in Saint Mary’s County, young Dashiell Hammett spent much of his young life in the city of Baltimore in addition to Philadelphia. Minimal information is able to be obtained about the childhood of Mr. Hammett, but the countless moves he had as a child were a result of his father’s work as a politician. In addition to minimal information known about Dashiell Hammett’s childhood, no

In "The Maltese Falcon" - perhaps the best novel of Hammett - Sam Spade succumbing to the deceptive allure of the red-haired beauty Bridzhid O'Shaughnessy and took a seemingly mild case, but which can blacken his reputation. The first blow not late - his partner Miles Archer was killed while working on the investigation commissioned by Bridzhid. Spade cops accused of murder. The situation is complicated by the emergence of hardened crooks who pressed in an attempt to get to the notoriously expensive golden statuette depicting Maltese Falcon. Who owns it now? How far would come a man to get to her? Spade task is complicated by the motives of those involved, and the outcome could be icy ... uweuy7sf iioerjuh jhsdjhu fguuhduy aygyhayhgy ufhj on

Smith’s article notes that they, all of O’Connor’s female characters, deserve sympathy because: “they’re all faced with an impossible task in having to synthesize aspects of both gender roles in order to maintain their livelihoods” (Smith 35).

The main advantage of women over men are women's abilities to use power differently than men do. This is displayed through “Appointment with love by S.I. Kishor”, “Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl”, and “The Dinner Party by Mona Gardner.” Throughout these short stories, the reader observes the ways the leading female characters are in control of the plots central conflict.

The Maltese Falcon is definitely one of the most critically acclaimed books from the Pulp Era. This book is full of both mystery and scandal, this book screams Pulp Era. In the book there are two men who work at a detective agency called Spade and Archer Detective Agency. The agency is named after Sam Spade and Miles Archer. A woman who goes by the name of Miss Wonderly, walks into the two men's office and is in search of her missing sister, by the time the night is finished with Miles Archer one of the detectives is killed along with another man. Spade takes a very strong interest in this woman and the men that she surrounds herself with. Spade develops a very strong need to constantly be in everything that she does. He even says that “she is a

She is typically considered to be a bombshell, very seductive, and has dangerous intentions. The detective in the story is attracted to her and cannot seem to leave her, no matter how manipulative and cunning she is, and she is often placed in juxtaposition with the protagonist. Although she is often a criminal and has feminist beliefs, she has no physical flaws and is not representative of a typical woman in society. One of the most well-known examples of the femme fatale is Brigid O’Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon. She is able to charm Spade the second she meets him and uses her sexuality as a weapon to obtain control over the men in her life. In an attempt to get away with murder, she emphasizes her physicality and tries to cover up for her crimes by seducing

As the Sonya Zhukovski’s character appears more primal in her portrayal of the femme fatale, her objectives are made more evident than those of Miss O’Shaughnessy. Nonetheless, the Op responds to Sonya’s offer with a sense of morality and duty. “You might as well expect a hound to play tiddly-winks with the fox he’s just caught.” Brigid’s con game is just as lucrative, yet her character has evolved to be more dangerously manipulative because of her emotional manipulation. However, just as the Op resists the advances of the princess, Spade shuts down Brigid’s plea for mercy. “Expecting me to run criminals down and then let them go free is like asking a dog to catch a rabbit and let it go,” responds Spade. “The femme fatale’s desire for a better life and greed for wealth is deadly and dangerous for those who succumb to her lure, but the detective’s desire for truth and maintain morals can be fatal for the dark lady, too.” As each woman’s ultimate objective is to be free of financial burden and to acquire a lavish lifestyle, each detective is given the characteristic of yearning for

While American and British authors developed the two distinct schools of detective fiction, known as “hard-boiled and “golden age,” simultaneously, the British works served to continue traditions established by earlier author; American works formed their own distinct identity. Though a niche category, detective works reflect the morality and culture of the societies their authors lived in. Written in the time period after World War I, Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon (1929) and “The Gutting of Couffignal” (1925), and Raymond Chandler’s “Trouble Is My Business” (1939) adapt their detectives to a new harsh reality of urban life. In “hard-boiled” works, the detective is more realistic than the detective in “golden age” works according to

No matter what characters women play, writers often find a way to integrate female sex appeal into their qualities . This is prominent in detective fiction, especially with the concept of the femme fatale. Susan Hayward in “Film Noir,” describes the femme fatale as being “active, intelligent, powerful, dominant and in charge of her own sexuality” (Hayward 151). In the Maltese Falcon and the BBC adaptation “A Scandal in Belgravia,” two female characters, the femme fatales, are unnecessarily sexualized throughout both stories. Brigid O’Shaughnessy and Irene Adler are portrayed as being manipulative tricksters. The writers give these women two choices, to use their sexuality or have their sexuality be used. Throughout the Maltese Falcon, Brigid is defined by her sexuality and the effect it has on Sam Spade while in “A Scandal in Bohemia,” Irene uses her sexuality to define herself and affect Sherlock in the story. For these women, in order for them to be seen as powerful, intelligent, and even