The hard-boiled detective novel is marked by its informal, realistic language and unsentimental tone. Structured on various elements of the detective formula, the key protagonist often finds himself alone and in danger. Typically set in dirty and corrupt cities peopled by criminals, these novels offer a dark and cynical view of American capitalism in the first half of the twentieth century.
Philip Marlowe as Individualist
One of the primary functions of depression era hard-boiled fiction was to test key American values especially individualism and the myth of the American dream. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, individualism is "a social theory favouring freedom of action for individuals over collective or state control". Individualism is self-interested and competitive in contrast to group needs and collective responsibility. For proponents of individualism, the individual is the foundation of society and his/her interests and rights should have priority over those of the society.
In The Big Sleep (1939) Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe is the epitome of the individualist. He lives outside the bounds of society; unmarried and a loner, he is suspect in the eyes of the power structure: “There were two men from the homicide bureau who looked at me as if I was some kind of strange beast escaped from a travelling circus” (225).
Marlowe is also lawless and rebellious, an ex-cop who was fired for insubordination. He operates outside the system, in between the bureaucracy and the underworld. He is a ‘private’ investigator as opposed to a ‘public’ servant and as a result, his position is precarious – he is ‘licensed’ but his license in always in danger of being revoked by authorities who resent his autonomy.
But Marlowe is also a man with a code: as he tell his client, “When you hire a boy in my line of work it isn’t like hiring a window-washer…You don’t know what I have to go through or over or under to do your job for you. I do it my way. I do my best to protect you and I may break a few rules, but I break them in your favour. The client comes first, unless he’s crooked. Even then all I do is hand the job back to him and keep my mouth shut” (231).
Hard-boiled Detective and Women
Hard-boiled detective fiction reflects the masculine anxiety over the changing status of women. In these novels, women are often portrayed as competitive, devious, wily and morally degenerate. They not only compete with men, but are dangerous contenders, able to use their sexuality to trap and weaken men. They are, as in much detective fiction, allied with unruly nature and imbued with animal characteristics.
Describing one encounter, Marlowe notes: “Dark silent mystified eyes stared at me solemnly, the doubt growing larger in them, creeping into them noiselessly, like a cat in long grass stalking a young blackbird… She sat there naked, propped on her hands, her mouth open a little, her face like scraped bone...Her teeth chattered and the hissing noise was sharp and animal…her eyes still empty and yet full of some jungle emotion” (170-172).
The figure of the big hearted but fundamentally flawed detective depicted in the novels of Dashiel Hammett and Raymond Chandler set the standard for detectives in the following years. Works by Mickey Spillane and later films such as Dirty Harry, Chinatown, and L.A. Confidential feature hard-boiled types that operate outside convention and often outside the law. Portrayed as individualists run amok in corrupt, crime ridden cities, they offer a darker view of the operation of authority in the modern age.
Despite being dangerous and often morally ambiguous, they remain as attractive and alluring as ever. The hard-boiled detective, whether private or public, not only satisfies expectations of a solution to a crime, but also fulfils a secret desire for freedom from conformity and authority.
Source
Chandler, Raymond. The Big Sleep (New York: Penguin, 1995)
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