Socially Distinct: The Underlying influence of Noblesse Oblige

In my last post, introducing Sam Spade, Dashiell Hammett and the evolution of the hard boiled detective, I compared the professions of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Dashiell Hammett and how these professions influenced the development of their fictional detectives.

In this post, I want to discuss the cultural climate that surrounded these two writers.

Yeah. Get ready for some serious oversimplification. These are the kinds of things people write books about, and I have 600 words. To help, I’m using a rather simple concept at the center of these distinctions: noblesse oblige.

Noblesse oblige literally means “nobility obliges” and is the concept that the nobility and aristocratic classes have, by virtue of their position and (inherited) wealth, an obligation to help the lower classes. This was generally put into practice by hiring servants and farmers, while the nobility was able to live off of interest, inheritances, and revenue so they could live a life of leisure. The result was a rigid social hierarchy without much social mobility: you died in the station you were born into.

It's kind of like Feudalism with fewer serfs and more servants.

I want to use this concept because it's a principle that gives us a glimpse at broad social and cultural structures. It's an interesting way to look at some of the main differences that crop up in Doyle and Hammett's world building because both lived in societies governed primarily by money: who had, who didn’t, who earned it, who wanted it and what they’d do to get it.

First, Doyle. At the end of the Victorian Era and the beginning of the modern era, when Holmes was gunning the letters VR (Victoria Regina, or Queen Victoria) into the wall of his Baker Street room, there was a rising middle class, but still an aristocratic hierarchy. Doyle, a conservative physician, wasn't interested in strong critiques of this hierarchy: he was interested in maintaining it. In short, noblesse oblige, while not addressed outright in Holmes stories, has left its mark on Doyle and his writing, evidenced in Doyle's tendency to maintain the status quo: people who inherited money and position on top, tradesmen and businessmen in the middle, and unskilled laborers on the bottom, and the less “English” someone was, the lower they sat. As a result, the people Holmes encounters tend to be satisfied with their position and finances. There may be some interest in earning a bit more here and there, but many of the villains Holmes encounters, like Milverton, have or are trying to earn enough money so they could change their social standing. In short, a Holmes villain is usually one who wants more: more money, more prestige, more power.

Then there's Hammett, coming from an American tradition devoid of the noblesse oblige. Hammett’s America was a culture where people earned their money. Industrialists like John D. Rockefeller, William Randolph Hearst, and Andrew Carnegie loomed large, men who came from very little, and became extremely powerful and wealthy. I'm not saying Hammett aspired to their levels of success (Hammett actually quit the Pinkertons because he disagreed with their strikebreaking practices), but he came from a culture where money was earned, not inherited, and where there was not a sense of superiority based on inherited titles and wealth. The result is Hammett and those that would follow him, (Raymond Chandler in particular) would be more critical of social establishments, the wealthy, and inheritances, with greed becoming a more universal vice and more characters who lie, complicating the detective's task.

The result is Hammett gave himself much more leeway, many more shades of gray to explore than Doyle explored. Characters become much more mobile socially, ethically, and even geographically, while station, lineage, and money, either don't mean anything, or do more harm than good. It's harder to pin anything down or identify where it belongs. It's easier to lie and just as easy to doubt. Holmes usually only had to doubt the honesty of the villains. Spade has to doubt everyone's honesty.

In short, Doyle adhered to the concept of noblesse oblige. Noblesse oblige and a rigid social hierarchy kept people in place, and people were satisfied with their social situation because there was little social mobility. Hammett and his hard boiled compatriots dealt with a world without that rigidity, and if honesty and hard work didn't get you a better position, some lies and crime might: people got where they are not through noble virtue and blood, but through questionable and illegal practices.

If you want to see justice meted out and feel like the world is a safe, stable place, read Holmes stories. If you want a world that's more cynical, mistrusting, but arguably more realistic, read a good hard boiled detective novel.