Dashiell Hammett provides us with The Maltese Falcon. This novel has a wide range of interesting characters and events that takes place in the 1930s. It is a story that is practically impossible to interpret until the very end. The novel takes the reader through many events, but these events seem completely irrelevant to each other. The main conflicts of the story is the unknown location of a valuable item, known as the Maltese falcon. The dark, violent, and unexpected style of writing in this novel is what makes this story so unique. Hammett puts together a genuine special piece of work that is unlike any other detective story. He sets his story in San Francisco. What makes this setting interesting is the fact that Hammett …show more content…
Unfortunately, Spade is notified in the middle the night that his partner has been murdered.
The next scene provides the reader with another example of Hammett’s flawless description of a real setting. Hammett writes, “Where Bush Street roofed Stockton before slipping downhill to Chinatown, Spade paid his fare and left the taxicab. San Francisco’s night-fog, thin, clammy, and penetrant blurred the street.” (12) As a reader, we can appreciate the realism of Hammett's text and we later can understand why Hammett used this descriptive setting. It is possible that the foggy San Francisco night foreshadows the complex mystery that surrounds Archers death and ultimately the location of the Maltese Falcon. The unknown location of the Maltese Falcon is the driving force of the story. All the characters express different emotions and contribute in different actions because they all have a desire to have possession of this valuable objects. Trust, greed, and stupidity are characteristics that describe the characters in the story. Consequently, these characteristics end up eliminating each character one by one. This novel focuses on the themes of deception, greed, and is developed through excellent character
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The development of the actual story, relies on the role of these locations. It makes me wonder if Dashiell Hammett’s use of setting was not deliberately created in The Maltese Falcon. The settings that he provides flow so clearly. My personal opinion is that. Hammett’s detail to setting, and ability to meticulously realistic characters and plots make his writing style genuine. Hammett’s story leaves me with much curiosity. I don't know what his intention was when he wrote The Maltese Falcon. Ultimately, the time period that he was exposed to during the publication of this novel, concludes me to believe that this story had some kind of real meaning to Hammett's heart. I do not think that this was written for pure entertainment, but get some type of point across. This point is ultimately a mystery. At least a mystery for
The author illustrates the “dim, rundown apartment complex,” she walks in, hand and hand with her girlfriend. Using the terms “dim,” and “rundown” portrays the apartment complex as an unsafe, unclean environment; such an environment augments the violence the author anticipates. Continuing to develop a perilous backdrop for the narrative, the author describes the night sky “as the perfect glow that surrounded [them] moments before faded into dark blues and blacks, silently watching.” Descriptions of the dark, watching sky expand upon the eerie setting of the apartment complex by using personification to give the sky a looming, ominous quality. Such a foreboding sky, as well as the dingy apartment complex portrayed by the author, amplify the narrator’s fear of violence due to her sexuality and drive her terror throughout the climax of the
The timeline carries on chronologically, the intense imagery exaggerated to allow the poem to mimic childlike mannerisms. This, subjectively, lets the reader experience the adventure through the young speaker’s eyes. The personification of “sunset”, (5) “shutters”, (8) “shadows”, (19) and “lamplights” (10) makes the world appear alive and allows nothing to be a passing detail, very akin to a child’s imagination. The sunset, alive as it may seem, ordinarily depicts a euphemism for death, similar to the image of the “shutters closing like the eyelids”
In this passage “The Street” by Ann Petry, Lutie Johnson’s relationship with her urban setting is expressed using figurative language. Lutie allows us to walk with her and experience one cold November night near the streets of seventh and eighth avenue. The relationship between Lutie Johnson and the urban setting is established using personification, imagery, and characterization.
Money can cause people to act selfish and arrogant, especially when they have so much money they do noteven know what to spend it on. In the novel,
...completely different people. In Lord of the Flies it says, “He looked in astonishment, no longer at himself but an awesome stranger.” (Golding, 63) In I Only Came to Use the Phone it says, “I don’t think I will ever be the same.” (Marquez, 89) By the authors isolating the characters it forces them to make choices that they may not think they would have ever made. The setting will affect any character to show their most basic tendencies and no matter what, the setting plays a huge role in the way that any character acts. One will realize that it might not be that the characters’ fault that they act the way they do, but the surroundings that they are forced into.
The aspect of greed shows itself as the heart of the many immoral acts committed by fictional characters and real people. From Adam and Eve’s betrayal to Macbeth’s collapse portrays what greed can produce as a result: destruction. Whether it destroys one’s health, it inherently portrays as a force to the path of corruption. The Pardoner, from The Canterbury Tales, defines greed’s purpose. This includes how greed pulls them to degeneration. No matter how subtle the fall, it still brings to distasteful events for the characters from The Importance of Being Earnest. Although the characters differ, their obsessions with their immoral acts decline their personalities. Thus, the authors portray the characters’ greed, as a pernicious force that drives
High expectations for parties and a hope to make it across the country using only one road are just two examples of the blind optimism seen throughout the novel. While the headstrong characters of the novel run about the country thinking that everything will be all right, the reality remains that most situations end in sorrow or adversely affected lives. Picking up hitchhikers who ultimately fail to have the gas money they promised, parties that end in disaster or argument, and emotionally abused wives and lovers almost always win out over the brand new car that might take them to Mexico or exultation that is sure to find them within the walls of a jazz club.
7. In the opening passage, Capote describes the town of Holcomb where four murders take place. In at least two paragraphs, analyze how Capote uses at least two rhetorical strategies to convey the tone of the novel and its setting.
Holcomb, Kansas in Capote’s eyes is described as uninteresting and dull. He uses diction and imagery to make Holcomb out to be just the same as any other small town, plain and boring. And with using imagery to describe the area with miniscule detail, Capote makes the town seem almost barren. Alongside that, all of Capote’s details include mostly scenery or events to give better imagery of the town as a whole.
As the journey to the destination begun the atmosphere is horrid as they passed cheap motels half deserted streets and sawdust motels it all set a very bleak tone of lifelessness, to support this claim, “like a patient etherized upon a table.” (Eliot 368) although they also encountered a yellow fog most likely caused by industrialism it took a form of animal imagery finding comfort in its surroundings to support this claim, “The yellow fog that rubs t back upon the window-panes, the yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes, Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening.” (Eliot
The love of money is the root of all evil, a statement that has proved itself true through the centuries. Loving money traps us, as human beings. It is not a bad thing to enjoy what money can do; however, the love of money is a wasted effort that can put all in grave peril. It is at our advantage that we have the ability to choose whether we ‘want’ to fall into that trap. Unfortunately, that choice is difficult since society associates one’s character with wealth and financial management. The mishaps, deaths, and hardships that occur from the beginning of the tale are the result of deliberate deception for personal gain. In Treasure Island, greed sends the characters on a voyage. Robert Louis Stevenson makes a social commentary on the role that money has come to play in our society.
The characters in the novel, including the operative himself are willing to lie, cheat, and kill in cold blood for their own personal gain. Although infidelity, greed, and self-preservation are expected from characters involved with the murders and inner crime ring; the story becomes more complicated when characters like the operative, and chief of police begin to get their hands dirty. Bringing the age-old crime ad punishment theme to a higher tier where the reader is unable to make an impulsive decision on who is a “bad guy”, and who is a “good
One of the main symbols of the story is the setting. It takes place in a normal small town on a nice summer day. "The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full summer day; the flowers were blooming profusely and the grass was richly green." (Jackson 347).This tricks the reader into a disturbingly unaware state,
The novel traces the historical lives of Victoria Woodhull, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Anthony Comstock as well as that of the fictional Freydeh Levin, mainly during the years of 1868 to 1874. The action is set in and around New York City. Also prime characters in this epic are the first women's movement and the post civil war re-constructionist gilded age, as they and their social ramifications intertwine with and impact the lives of the human characters.
This sensational novel is an adventure novel consisting of an enterprising Englishman touring the globe. Woven within are historical facts, such as the British Empire and colonies around the globe, as well as historically accurate locations.