Marlowe Code Of Conduct Essay

650 Words2 Pages

In many ways Phillip Marlowe appears to have no moral code of conduct. At times he speaks with impolite, attitude filled words. Yet, Marlowe still succeeds in his detective work and manages to satisfy his clients. He places himself directly in the middle of the crime without any physical assistance from the police. He feels no need to play by anybody else's rules, especially not those of society. Marlowe’s code of conduct is abstract and unrefined; he does not play by the rules, but he is still successful. Marlowe is successful in many ways. First, he is capable of obtaining the necessary information to incriminate suspects. For example, although Marlowe presumed Joe Brody did not kill Geiger, he still managed to convince Jody that he had …show more content…

He continuously put himself in the line of attack even though many situations were dangerous and could have been incriminating. In the beginning he shows up at Geiger’s bookstore to directly spy on Geiger himself. Next he follows the truck straight to Brody’s apartment and even talks to the man unloading the books. Marlowe makes a second trip back to the bookstore, talking to Agnes in the process, and then shows up to Brody’s house only to end up chasing after the boy who shot Brody. Although he is ultimately shunned by the police for involving himself individually into certain matters, he learns immersing himself directly works. John Cawelti offers the description that “the hard-boiled detective sets out to investigate a crime but invariably finds that he must go beyond the solution to some kind of personal choice or action.” Even in the end of the novel when he ultimately finds himself inching closer to his murder by Canino, he finds trust in one last character, Mona, and manages to escape free. When he returns back to the Sternwood home, he is finally able to piece together that Carmen had killed Rusty Reagan because he rejected her, information he only would have known from being on the

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