Humanity in the Maltese Falcon?
Marshall Burns:
I had a different view of Spade selling out Brigid. I don't think he was being cold and heartless; I think he was really in love with her. He did what he did because he was standing up for himself, in spite of himself.
Or maybe I just need to re-read it. It's been a while.
James_Nostack:
I'd agree they have a lot of passion, but I have a hard time interpreting what they've got as "love." Romance, maybe.
Anyway, I'm still a little perplexed by Effie's judgment on Brigid. I'll hit the book again and see if I can spot something. Of course, it's this ambiguity that makes the novel a classic...
Anticipating matters slightly, Brigid actually might work as an unbound demon who's urgently trying to persuade Spade into a binding, while Spade (mayyyybe) trying to convince her to become human.
James_Nostack:
Okay, I think I've got this:
Dual Humanity definition.
On the one side, Humanity = Loyalty, or being able to trust and be trusted. Being steadfast and true. Keeping it real with someone. Keeping the faith with other people.On the other side, Humanity = Sentiment. This term is often pejorative, but not here--I'm thinking of the term as the Romantic poets would have thought of it. As the kernel of an emotional attachment. At its fullest extent, romance and passion.When these two factors are in harmony at the fullest extent, you've got something like True Love: an unshakable commitment for someone who sets your soul on fire etc. etc. But that doesn't always happen.
So let's look at Spade's major relationships through this lens:
Archer - Spade has no sentimentality for Archer at all: he's a lech, a dope, and bad at his job. Spade, however, ultimately chooses to keep faith with Archer by turning in his killer.Brigid - Spade certainly feels some romance for Brigid, and he is pretty gallant toward Brigid for most of the novel. But he can't bring himself to trust her because she's incapable of being sincere. At the end, he crushes his sentimentality because there's no trust between them, and he has to keep some kind of covenant with Archer. Note also that there's definitely some Humanity loss (possibly along both axes) when Spade forces Brigid to undress after Gutman's trickIva - no sentiment, no loyalty in this relationship. Spade is trapped and hates being with her.Effie - there's a lot of affection here, and the two of them watch out for each other.
Spade is a thick-skinned, cold-hearted, unsentimental brute who abuses most of the people around him including his friends. He's a tough-guy detective and bordering on being a lousy human being. Effie knows this; she patiently puts up with it because she hopes he's not all bad. She hopes that deep down inside there's some germ of human feeling inside him. She urges him to be good to Brigid because Effie strongly believes in the redemptive power of romance. But Spade ultimately is forced to spurn her, and something inside him dies. It leaves him horribly compromised in Effie's eyes, and although she still cares for Sam she can't approve of him right now.
Ron Edwards:
I think you nailed it.
I have generally not utilized Dashiell Hammett's work for relationship maps because most of his novels tend to be based on several basic, protagonist-centered relationships, and then proliferate from there. They remind me more of "basic" Sorcerer in which nearly all the content is derived from the Kickers and the diagrams on the backs of the character sheets. Red Harvest is an exception (most people know this story as Yojimbo or For a Fistful of Dollars).
Best, Ron
James_Nostack:
I'll keep that in mind. I read The Dain Curse earlier this month, and the structure of that book is pretty wacky. (I assume it must have been published as a serial, but the copyright page doesn't reflect that.)
Step 3: Alter the Map
Given the Humanity definition from Step 2, three settings suggest themselves:
* Paris during the early 1830's
* Crack dealers in the late 1980's along the East Coast . . . say, Trenton.
* Korea during the last days of the Goryeo Dynasty (late 1300's)
The crack-dealer setting is probably the best fit, but presenting it would require a bit of work to present in a way that isn't informed by white middle-class hysteria and yet still retains enough genre elements for emotional buy-in. That'd be a difficult line to walk and this morning I don't have the energy to try.
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