Dashiell Haemmett Corkscrew Analysis

From the novel Corkscrew by Dashiell Hammett, written in 1925, we see many different writing techniques. We see various symbols that show the despair of the town. The sentence structure helps identify the important points in the passage giving an in depth description of the scene and evoking a sense of urgency at times, and the author successfully uses foreshadowing to catch the reader’s attention. The author uses diction and imagery to create the image of a town filled with an unknown evil, and the struggles of the new sheriff trying to figure out what is going on.

The author uses symbolism to describe the aura of the town, creating an oppressive atmosphere for the reader. The oppressive heat tells the reader that the town is hiding something,

The driver is shown as knowing the area when they enter Corkscrew, as within minutes of arriving in the town he “…vanished into a building labelled Adderly’s Emporium” (l.25).The lack of desire for communication with the officer is clear as: “The driver felt as little like talking as I” (l.3). The short sentence provides emphasizes, telling us that this statement is important, and gives the impression that the people in the town are either not very accepting to new people, or they are hiding something that they do not want anyone else to know. The driver may very while be the reason that his identity was revealed rather quickly, which makes the reader uneasy. Not long after he enters the Canon House, he discovers that “Somebody had kept my secret right out in the open!” (l.58).The sentence has only one point revealed, is short and clearly desires notice. In fact, it is written as its own paragraph, but the fact that this sentence is seen as important indicates that this secret being revealed so soon will have a large effect on this story, especially if the town is hiding something that they do not want a police officer to

The people in this area are seen as secretive, including the driver, and the police officer is determined to find out what it is they are hiding. We see that the officer himself suspects something is wrong in this town when he starts to arm himself. : We see that the officer arms himself not only visibly but he also thinks it is important to keep some things hidden: “Their smallness let me carry them where they’d be close to my hands without advertising the fact that the gun under my shoulder wasn’t all my arsenal” (l.67-69). This provides the description we need to know not only what he was doing but why. The officer knew something dangerous was afoot, otherwise he would have been unlikely to feel the need to hide some guns, as he clearly does here. Corkscrew must be hiding something if he already felt that something was off in this