The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
Dashiell Hammett’s novel, The Maltese Falcon, is a hard-boiled detective novel; a subset of the mystery genre. Before the appearance of this sub-genre, mystery novels were mainly dominated by unrealistic cases and detectives like Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. As Malmgren states, “The murders in these stories are implausibly motivated, the plots completely artificial, and the characters pathetically two-dimensional, puppets and cardboard lovers, and paper mache villains and detectives of exquisite and impossible gentility.” (Malmgren, 371) On the other hand, Hammett tried to write realistic mystery fiction – the “hard-boiled” genre. In the Maltese Falcon, Hammett uses language, symbolism, and characterization to bring the story closer to reality.
The Maltese Falcon is written in a casual tone filled with colloquialisms in a clipped laconic style from an objective point of view. In the novel, Hammett used a lot of slang that are specific to one social group: the underworld criminals, and the police & detectives who dealt with them. For example, when Spade is being accused by the police for killing his partner, Miles Archer, he said:
You oughtn’t try to pin more than one murder at a time on me. Your first idea that I knocked Thursby [a character who is murdered near the beginning of the novel] off because he killed Miles falls apart if you blame me for killing Miles, too […] But suppose I did, you could’ve blipped ‘em both. (Hammett, 451)
Words such as pin (accused), knock off (kill) and blip (kill) are widely known slang terms at the time, so incorporating them into speeches makes the characters more rough and realistic. Hammett uses a clipped, laconic style which speeds the action along, controls emotion and limits clear access to character’s thoughts by the readers. For instance, when Brigid tries to bribe Spade into getting the Maltese Falcon for her, Spade’s only response is, “Five thousand dollars is a lot of money” (Hammett, 57), which leaves both Brigid and
The Maltese Falcon is written in a casual tone filled with colloquialisms in a clipped laconic style from an objective point of view. In the novel, Hammett used a lot of slang that are specific to one social group: the underworld criminals, and the police & detectives who dealt with them. For example, when Spade is being accused by the police for killing his partner, Miles Archer, he said:
You oughtn’t try to pin more than one murder at a time on me. Your first idea that I knocked Thursby [a character who is murdered near the beginning of the novel] off because he killed Miles falls apart if you blame me for killing Miles, too […] But suppose I did, you could’ve blipped ‘em both. (Hammett, 451)
Words such as pin (accused), knock off (kill) and blip (kill) are widely known slang terms at the time, so incorporating them into speeches makes the characters more rough and realistic. Hammett uses a clipped, laconic style which speeds the action along, controls emotion and limits clear access to character’s thoughts by the readers. For instance, when Brigid tries to bribe Spade into getting the Maltese Falcon for her, Spade’s only response is, “Five thousand dollars is a lot of money” (Hammett, 57), which leaves both Brigid and
Cited: Abrahams, Pual P. “On re-reading the Maltese Falcon” Journal pf American Culture (Bowling Green) 18.1 (1995): 97 Hammett, Dashiell. The Maltese Falcon. New York: Vintage Books, 1930 Malmgren, Carl D. “The Crime of the Sign: Dashiell Hammett’s Detective Fiction” Twentieth Century Literature 45.3 (1990): 371