In Dashiell Hammet’s The Maltese Falcon, the "black bird" serves as a crucial link connecting Sam Spade and Brigid O’ Shaughnessy. The black bird functions as the structural bond of Spade and Brigid’s relationship because it represents their greed and desire for wealth. Hammet points out that the Brigid’s greed for the bird causes her to utilize detective Spade as a tool: "Help me, Mr. Spade. Help me because I need help so badly, and because if you don’t where will I find anyone who can, no matter how willing?" (Hammet 35). This quotation illustrates Brigid’s submissiveness and dependency on Mr. Spade to help her. But later she becomes the dominant figure when she utilizes her monetary wealth to her advantage: “She opened handbag with nervous fingers and put two hundred-dollar bills on Spade’s desk” (Hammett 9). Spade admits his greed when he says, he only “believed [Brigid’s] two hundred dollars” (Hammett 33) and not her story. The narrator illustrates how Spade views money as an adequate payment for his time. Spade and Brigid represent both the real black bird and the fake black bird because of their faulty façade, which cover up their true personalities.
The name “black bird” is not a random happening, but carries its own meaning within the novel. The narrator calls the rare Maltese Falcon the Black Bird because it symbolizes Brigid’s façade built on lies and deception. Similar to the Maltese Falcon, which has a black coat covering the diamonds, Brigid selfish personality is hidden through her lies: Brigid “lied to [Spade] about [her] sister and all” in order to hide her true intentions of stealing the Black Bird. She utilizes her cunning mouth to hide everything true about herself: “You don’t think I had ...
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... timepiece that measured how much time they would spend together. Brigid’s desire for the Black Bird cause her to meet Spade, while Spade’s desire for justice cause the end of their relationship. The reason Brigid and Spade are unable to truly love one another is because they are both selfish in their own way. Spade takes too much pride as a detective and Brigid cares only for herself. Hammett highlights their dependency on one another. Because Spade serves as protection against Cairo and Gutman while Brigid is a source of information and evidence for Spade.
Work Cited
Hammett, Dashiell. The Maltese Falcon. New York: Vintage Books, Publishers, Inc, 1992.
Irwin, John. “Unless the Threat of Death is Behind Them: Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon” Literary Imagination: The Review of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics: 341-374. Google Scholar. 08 March 2008 .
Chopin mentions birds in a subtle way at many points in the plot and if looked at closely enough they are always linked back to Edna and her journey of her awakening. In the first pages of the novella, Chopin reveals Madame Lebrun's "green and yellow parrot, which hung in a cage" (Chopin 1). The caged bird at the beginning of the novella points out Edna's subconscious feeling of being entrapped as a woman in the ideal of a mother-woman in Creole society. The parrot "could speak a little Spanish, and also a language which nobody understood" (1). The parrot's lack of a way to communicate because of the unknown language depicts Edna's inability to speak her true feelings and thoughts. It is for this reason that nobody understands her and what she is going through. A little further into the story, Madame Reisz plays a ballad on the piano. The name of which "was something else, but [Edna] called it Solitude.' When she heard it there came before her imagination the figure of a man standing on a desolate rock on the seashore His attitude was one of hopeless resignation as he looked toward a distant bird winging its flight away from him" (25). The bird in the distance symbolizes Edna's desire of freedom and the man in the vision shows the longing for the freedom that is so far out of reach. At the end of the story, Chopin shows "a bird with a broken wing beating the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down to the water" while Edna is swimming in the ocean at the Grand Isle shortly before she drowns (115). The bird stands for the inability to stray from the norms of society and become independent without inevitably falling from being incapable of doing everything by herself. The different birds all have different meanings for Edna but they all show the progression of her awakening.
I am a human being, and so are you. You know that if two colored men came along and found two white women pinned under a car, they’d help them. How can you be so inhuman?” (97). This passage practically shows the meaning behind His Eye on the Sparrow.
Nick observes many relationships during his stay in New York, and looks upon these relationships with a perceptive eye. He sees that relationships which lack mutual feelings are destined for failure. Nick watches as Tom Buchanan meets with his mistress, Myrtle, and Nick notices the disparity in the respect that Tom and Myrtle have for each other. Myrtle appears to follow Tom’ s each and every demand, as if she were at the end of a tightly held rope, which Nick compares to the “...small expensive dog leash made of leather and braided silver” (166) which was found in Myrtle’ s drawer at her house. Myrtle’ s leash, one that could be used to control and manipulate every action of a person’s pet, is representative of Myrtle’ s willingness to subordinate her will to accommodate Tom’s demands. Myrtle’ s absolute de...
Murphy, B. & Shirley J. The Literary Encyclopedia. [nl], August 31, 2004. Available at: http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2326. Access on: 22 Aug 2010.
Although the era during which Blackbird came out most likely suggests it was written for the African American race to associate with, it very much correlates to Shelley’s being in Frankenstein. Symbolically speaking, the blackbird in the song represents the creation and his life, as he knows it. Victor simply created this being, but never took his responsibility beyond that point in regards to guiding this new life form toward happiness. Thus, the creature’s wings, that took him on his flight of life, were futile until he decided to learn and experience existence by himself. His sunken eyes, from the beginning of time, were empty forever longing for that guidance that he never received from Victor. The creature came into the world basically a newborn, pertaining to his lack of knowledge or any unfeigned emotion. And, it was the obligation of Victor to instill upon him normal morals and knowledge about the world to provide a structural and principled foundation. Needless to say, Victor failed to do so and the so the creature inevitably became the blackbird.
middle of paper ... ... The hard-boiled detective fiction, The Maltese Falcon, is considered Hammett’s most famous and popular novel. Because of his previous career as a detective in one of the US’s largest professional detective agencies, he is able to bring an aura of realism with a bit of pessimism into his stories. For The Maltese Falcon, such realism is achieved using language from that social group in a style which brings an almost real feeling of action to the reader; symbolism of characters to actual events; and characterizing characters with real life human qualities.
The tile of the poem “Bird” is simple and leads the reader smoothly into the body of the poem, which is contained in a single stanza of twenty lines. Laux immediately begins to describe a red-breasted bird trying to break into her home. She writes, “She tests a low branch, violet blossoms/swaying beside her” and it is interesting to note that Laux refers to the bird as being female (Laux 212). This is the first clue that the bird is a symbol for someone, or a group of people (women). The use of a bird in poetry often signifies freedom, and Laux’s use of the female bird implies female freedom and independence. She follows with an interesting image of the bird’s “beak and breast/held back, claws raking at the pan” and this conjures a mental picture of a bird who is flying not head first into a window, but almost holding herself back even as she flies forward (Laux 212). This makes the bird seem stubborn, and follows with the theme of the independent female.
Bibliography:.. Works Cited Meyer, M., Ed., (1999). Bedford Introduction to Literature, 5th Ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin.
.... The caged bird also symbolizes the pressure and control the individuals and society have over Edna. Initially, she complies with the image of green – and – yellow bird by obliging to the implicit rules of the society and goes along with the crowd, but later on when she realizes her inner desire for passion and sensuality, she contradicts this image and detests it (Kelly, 2001).
...." Studies In The Literary Imagination 36.2 (2003): 61-70. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 6 Dec. 2013.
164-69. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter. Vol. 341. Detroit: Gale, 2013.Artemis Literary Sources. Web. 5 May 2014.
In I Know why the Caged Bird Sings the author uses many different literary devices and various figurative language examples. The use of metaphors, imagery, similes, and Symbolism has a great effect. They’re effective due to the fact in how they inform the reader of various important details needed to understand the story completely. The use of specific, different, and various types of language illustrate to the reader the effect of racism on many characters in the novel.
The Scarlet Ibis bird symbolizes Doodle; this symbolism can be seen by the authors description of both Doodle’s and the Scarlet Ibis’s appearance after death. After the Scarlet Ibis fell from the bleeding tree his “long, graceful neck jerked twice into an S, then straightened out,” (Hurst 4) and he died. After Doodle’s death his brother finds “him huddled beneath a nightshade bush beside the road,” (Hurst 4) where he lay dead. The way Doodle fell made “his vermilion neck appear unusually long and slim,” (Hurst 4). Much like the long legs of the Scarlet Ibis, “his little legs bent sharply at the knees,” making them seem “so fragile, so thin,” (Hurst 4). This description of Doodle allows the reader to imagine him like the Scarlet Ibis, with his seemingly long neck and thin, fragile legs. Both Doodle and the Scarlet Ibis have this appearance after they fall to their death. Hurst utilizes very similar descriptive words when describing both the Scarlet Ibis and Doodle’s appearance after death, so that readers can better see the symbolism of the two.
Throughout Chopin's novel, The Awakening, she utilizes symbols to convey a deeper meaning in the story. One common animal, like a bird, or object, like clothing represent so much more than what is just on the surface in the text. The symbolism of birds as women, clothing as freedom, and even art as personal freedom or failure, beautify the novel and give it a deeper meaning. Birds are simple creatures, but they possess a great power, flight. This gift can be expressed or hindered through clipped wings, or cages. Women too, are magnificent creatures capable of so much, but in the Victorian times, (among others) exemplified in the novel their freedoms were restrained by men and society in general. Thus birds were an appropriate and rather witty symbol to represent them with. The colorful, repetitive parrot in the book represents Edna, " Allez vous-en! Allez vous-en! Sapristi!", (page 1) translates to, " Get out, get out, damn it!" in English. The bird is caged in bars, while Edna is caged in marriage, children and Creole society. She is a colorful creature, with creativity and talent in painting, and the parrot is telling everyone what she wants to do (escape). The fact that the bird speaks three languages (French, English, and Spanish) describes Edna as complicated and difficult for everyone to fully understand, or even to comprehend at all. Edna eventually achieves some freedom by moving out into the "pigeon house", a small cottage that conveys a resting place for birds just before flight.
Bird usually portrays an image of bad luck that follows afterwards and in this novel, that is. the beginning of all the bad events that occur in the rest of the novel. It all started when Margaret Laurence introduced the life of Vanessa MacLeod. protagonist of the story, also known as the granddaughter of a calm and intelligent woman. I am a woman.