The Big Sleep is a detective novel written by Raymond Chandler, in 1939, describing a crime in Los Angeles. This book is about how the detective, who is also the main character —— Philip Marlowe, found out the secret of the disappearance of Rusty Regan. Regan is General Sternwood’s son-in-law, Vivian Sternwood’s husband. After Geiger was dead, Marlowe started to know the difficulties in this case. After a long time solving and discussion, Philip Marlowe figured out that it was Vivian Sternwood’s younger sister—— Carmen killed Rusty, and made everyone think he ran away, and all this was under Eddie Mars’s control. In fact, this classic novel is not just brilliant in plot designing, but deeper discoveries. Today, we will review The Big Sleep in different ways of thinking.
Firstly, this book remarks about the choice between sentiment and morality. While facing problems and big challenges in life, how will you choose—— protect the people you love, or follow the law, and keep honesty in your heart? In this novel, there are deep discussions about it. We can see that when crime happens—— especially murder, everyone’s dark side are shown. For instance, Vivian Sternwood, who knew all along that her own sister—— Carmen killed her husband, Rusty Regan. But although her father and detective were trying to help, she still prefers to hide the truth to protect the younger Carmen. It seems that no matter what Vivian tries to do, it’s always going to hurt the people she loves.
Meanwhile, there are discussions about the complicated and dark side of America, back in the 1930s. I believe that everyone in this book symbolized different groups in the US’s society, and this case is foreshadowing the US’s situation. Take the main character, Phillip Marlowe as an example, he had a clever mind and honesty, which gave him great help to find out the truth of this case. But still, Marlowe is a middle aged man who had strong prejudice to homosexual people—— Geiger. Vivian Sternwoods, who always gets drunk and gamble, who has only little moral sense, although she grew up in a high social class family. There are still a variety of characters that symbolize different groups, but most importantly, the whole scene that is represented in the novel is about how people fight against each other because of revenge, jealousy, prejudice… Every character was showing irresponsibility, selfishness. People are losing their sense of morality.
This book also remarks how people from different social classes struggle and survive. From people who steal for living, to the high social class families, people always try to gain benefits for themselves, and the author is reminding us that social status does not mean true nobility. The Starwood’s family is a perfect example of it—— the General himself just needs to give an order, and pay money that almost means nothing to him, to gain what he wants. His daughters were spoiled, and have mental problems. Also Mars, from a detail that he cleaned his nails after his staff touched him, we can see the high status, but also pride in this man. But on the other hand, Marlowe, who is poor and works as a staff, always had to listen to the Sternwoods family. He didn’t have a chance to speak of his own opinion.
To sum up, The Big Sleep is a novel that discovered the society in Los Angeles in many ways. In fact, no matter the choices the characters made, the symbolizations, and the power of money in the society. This book directly gives us an insight into how many complex stories and people are behind a murder. Although it was written in the early 20th century, it is still worth rereading, and deep thinking about it again.
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