Violent, Young, and Lost: Wilmer Cook

Far from the soft, sweet, cooing of Brigid O'Shaughnessey, we have Wilmer Cook, one of Gutman's little gang. It can be easy to lump these characters together because of the novel's homosexual subtext around them, or to forget about Wilmer because he doesn't do as much as Joel. Joel Cairo visits Spade's office and holds him at gunpoint and searches his room, whereas Wilmer, perpetually known as “the boy” lingers off to the side, waiting for his chance to be violent.

Wilmer Cook isn’t just violent. He’s the most violent character in the novel. He is blamed for Thursby's murder, and it's believable given his tendency to skulk around with guns in his pockets, stalks Spade, later kicks a drugged Spade in the forehead, and may be responsible for searching some personal rooms. He is also verbally abrasive. The first conversation between Spade and Cook in a hotel lobby, features this comment on Cook's vocabulary: “The boy spoke two words, the first a short guttural verb, the second, 'you'”, and later, when approached by the hotel detective, Luke, Cook simply says, “I won't forget you guys” (98), a cool statement laced with pent frustration, ready to lash out. Cook is violent. Whether it's a violation of one's physical well being or one's own space and security, it's his way of accomplishing things.

However, we can't just call Wilmer the novel's embodiment of violence. He bears another significant trait: his youth, and, by extension, inexperience. He is almost always “the boy” even after his name is revealed. When he takes Spade to see Gutman, Spade manages to get his precious guns from him and Spade remarks to Gutman, “a crippled newsie took them away from him, but I got them back” (126), insulting Cook's ability. His age is never given, nor is there any exposition to explain his behavior. He could be a teenager, whereas the actors who played him were 38 (Elisha Cook in 1941) and 32 (Dwight Frye in 1931), about as old as Spade himself (7). There's no suggestion he's any blood relation to Gutman (who has a daughter, Rhea, who is mentioned in passing and makes one appearance), or any other characters. It seems he came to San Francisco from New York as part of Gutman's party, but it isn't clear if he was in Europe or Russia before Brigid teamed up with Floyd Thursby to steal the falcon. Cook is vague.

There are some problems in interpreting vague characters. We only have so much to go off of in figuring them out, which means a lot of possibility without much certainty.

For example, Cook could be a product, directly or indirectly, of the Great War, a conflict that turned the world itself violent and detached from its past, struggling in the “modern” world. He could be a veteran of the Great War (If so, I'd expect him to put up more of a fight to Spade) or maybe he's younger and lost his parents in the war or to the 1918 influenza pandemic, making him a long-time orphan who turned to crime and was picked up by Gutman to do the violence Gutman wasn't willing to do himself. Or maybe he's a runaway, or the child of equally violent parents.

Or maybe he's just there because the story needs him. Cook does, after all, fulfill the role of scapegoat late in the novel to benefit more prominent characters. Much of what Wilmer does to otherwise advance the story could have been handled by Joel Cairo. If so, then Hammett endowed him with more unsavory traits to make him unsympathetic. Less a character than a prop. No symbolism, no deeper significance, just an unsympathetic character to get thrown under the proverbial bus.

Wilmer Cook reminds us of an issue we encounter in studying literature all the time: we can't always be certain. Cook could be a reflection on what Gertrude Stein called “the lost generation,” a disoriented youth in a tattered, war-torn world, or he could be a part of the setting, moved from background to fore and endowed with action to fulfill narrative purposes. It's possible to read him either way, and neither reading, while very different, is necessarily wrong.

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Works Cited

Hammett, Dashiell. The Maltese Falcon. New York: Vintage Books, 1972. Print. 

Don't trust the Siren's Song: Brigid O'Shaughnessy

When The Maltese Falcon opens, Ms. Wonderly is seeking help from Spade & Archer. Later, Ms. Leblanc moves into a new hotel because hers was broken into, and then Brigid O'Shaughnessy, on several occasions, pleads with Sam Spade to help her. All of these names apply to the same character, who, once she’s known as Brigid, remains Brigid. She uses these aliases to move around and deceive people, so she can, as needs be, appear scared and flighty, weak, and in need of help. These pleas are her siren's song.

In Greek mythology, the sirens were bird-like creatures who would sing their songs to lure sailors to their island, where the sirens would eat them. The myths tell us nothing of the nature of their song, but It's easy to imagine the siren song as sensual, alluring, and seductive. After all, sailors would hurl themselves from their boats despite the bleached skulls on the shore. Odysseus, in the Odyssey, plugged his men's ears with wax and had himself lashed to the mast as they went by so the men would not be tempted but still hear. He wanted to hear and survive what could be so alluring and dangerous.

Using the myth of the sirens, Margaret Atwood offers an interesting interpretation In her poem “Siren Song”. Atwood presents the siren song as a plea for help. It isn't about the seductress who entices, but the seemingly innocent who requests. After all, the sirens themselves aren't interested in sex: they're looking for their next meal. They need to appeal to the altruistic as well as the greedy. Therefore, according to Atwood, the siren's song is a cry for help. This will get the sexually inclined on the siren's island because of their hope for a reward, and the more altruistic will go out of their own willingness. Atwood ends her poem with “Alas/it is a boring song/but it works every time.

But does it work every time?

Presumably, Brigid used the same ploy on Floyd Thursby. We don't know much about their relationship other than it revolved around the falcon, mistrust, and ended with Thursby's death. Thursby was a dangerous, violent man, and so are Gutman’s men, but she survives and thrives in their midst. She survives because she doesn't overtly rely on violence, but rather on her allure.

Atwood's interpretation of the siren song contains the lines, “Only you, only you can,/you are unique.” The siren's goal is to lure in someone unsuspecting, to reassure them that they have the means to help her with her situation. Brigid uses the same ploy on Spade, but come the end of the novel, he refers to Thursby as his “predecessor” (224), showing he recognizes Brigid's scheme. Spade knows that, to her, he isn't unique: he's merely a means to an end. Knowing this, Spade never trusts her and never buys her act or her long-winded pleas. He doubts her, grows tired of her, and even searches her room and has his secretary spy on her.

Sam Spade has an interesting reaction to Brigid’s siren song. Knowing what happened to Thursby, and aiming to solve the case without ending up dead, he plays around with Brigid and her song. He doesn’t plug his ears like Odysseus’ men, nor does he listen and leave as Odysseus himself did. Miles Archer, as previously discussed, heard her song (saw the siren) and went after her eagerly. Spade, in his cynicism, doesn’t trust the siren’s song. Instead, he questions it, peels it back, and examines the words, the singer, and their purpose. Perhaps he was able to do this because he was faced by only one siren, and he saw what happened to Miles because he listened to and chased after the siren’s song.

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Works Cited

Hammett, Dashiell. The Maltese Falcon. New York: Vintage Books, 1972. Print. 

Atwood, Margaret. "Siren Song." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d.. Web. 8 Aug 2016. <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/detail/32778>