Powers and Limitations: Polhaus, Dundy, and Bryan

In the course of The Maltese Flacon, Sam Spade periodically has to deal with the official police force; specifically, Detective Tom Polhaus, Police Lieutenant Dundy, and District Attorney Bryan. However, while each character is unique (Polhaus is much more willing to work with Sam than Dundy is; Dundy himself remains quiet and frustrated, and the District Attorney knows he has to save face as a public figure), they appear less often than Brigid, Cairo, Cook, or Gutman, but their roles in the novel are important in ensuring a satisfying outcome by enabling the civil justice Spade cannot.

The generic role of the official force when the protagonist is a private investigator (or really any competing detective) is to follow the wrong track. They provide alternative hypotheses about the case and sometimes even provide relevant information but have a tendency to misinterpret it, but are, never the ones to solve it. Because of this, the detective has a tendency to keep them in the dark about certain things, lest the police interfere in the investigation, especially when it's a private detective versus the official police. In some cases, not only will they compete with the protagonist but they will actively try to impede and harass the detective.

Sometimes, the official detectives' case is tangential to the protagonist’s. The Maltese Falcon is one such case. Once Spade gets caught up in the mystery of the Falcon, solving that mystery becomes part and parcel to discovering who killed Archer and Thursby, and his lack of sympathy makes us almost forget Archer until the very end when Spade reminds Brigid about it. For Spade, finding the Falcon meant finding out who killed his partner. Polhaus and Dundy never seek the Falcon. They don't even learn about it until the end.

Which begs the question: had they known, could they have done anything about the Falcon?

Polhaus, Dundy, and Bryan focus on Thursby's past as a gambler's bodyguard, an aspect of Thursby's background Spade learns from them, but it never directly affects Spade's investigation (that Thursby's Webley had killed Archer, though, Spade does use). Spade, on the other hand, does not reveal any of his investigation, conclusions, or hypotheses to them, As Spade himself says, “Mrs. Spade didn't raise any children dippy enough to make guesses in front of a district attorney.”

Of course, come the novel's end, Spade has discovered the murderers and found (or rather received) the Falcon, effectively doing Polhaus and Dundy's jobs for them while they were looking into Thursby's past. However, Spade can only do their job up to a point. As a private investigator, Spade does not have the power or authority to actually arrest, hold, or try the guilty party, and given Spade's double dealing, it would be difficult to tell whether he's an honest or dishonest man at the end. We may wonder on that point throughout the novel, but the inclusion of Polhaus and Dundy, the official policeman, means Spade has more options than to merely side with or betray Gutman and his gang. Spade has the option to side with law and order.

Polhaus and Dundy take Spade from an extreme and situate him in the middle. Ostensibly, Spade is like Polhaus and Dundy, but the range of his powers are different from theirs. He cannot incarcerate anyone, but can choose his cases. A case the police wouldn't take, he would. Similarly, where the official police are bound by their position, Spade is, like Gutman and his gang, a little freer to move around, engage in some more underhanded dealings, lie a little easier, or even be a little more honest. Spade is obligated only to his license (the revocation of which is threatened) and his conscience and only limited to the investigative powers his license affords him. Spade needs Polhaus, Dundy, and Bryan to ensure the villains' capture and to keep Spade from being one of them.

Taking up Space: The Corpulent Casper Gutman

Of course, someone had to be the first to seek out the Falcon, the one who knows the most about it and employ others to get it and who chases them down when they betray him. This role is filled by Casper Gutman. If not for him, Joel, Wilmer, Brigid, and Thursby never would have come to San Francisco, much less crossed one another's and Spade’s paths or entered one another's offices and apartments. Spade may end it, but Gutman started it. Gutman, initially and briefly, is known only as “G”, with Brigid writing the letter in the air before Spade and Cairo, indicating the mysterious individual behind the shadowed curtain. He dictates where people go, and when someone deals with one of his men or the bird he seeks, they have to deal with him.

However, he doesn't stay in the shadows for long. He doesn't even remain all that mysterious. Most villains evade giving details and information to the heroes. This is what Brigid and Cairo did after all: neither is entirely honest with Spade about what they want and why. Gutman, however, goes out of his way to detail the history of the bird and his efforts to get it. Where others hide their cards, Gutman willingly shows his, or at least some of them. Even when Spade tries to negotiate with him, Gutman is confident he'll make his escape fine, likely because he's done it before.

And then there's his girth and his speech. While it can be easy to forget what the other characters look like and they all tend to keep their lips shut more than open, Gutman, literally and figuratively, stands out. He's fat, with references to his multiple chins, and even his name: Gutman. His size is his most distinct physical characteristic. Similarly, his speech is distinct from his fellow characters. Everyone talks differently, but they tend to do so in hushed tones. Gutman has not only highly distinct speech patterns, but the mere quantity of words exceeds that of those around him. This man loves to talk, and it's a different proclivity than Brigid whose long speeches are pleas designed to get others to help her and make others believe they're in charge.

However, his size and his speech have no bearing on the novel's outcome. Gutman isn't caught by the police because he was too fat to run away, no doors he's unable to pass through, nor is he caught because he takes too long with a speech or reveals something he shouldn't. He's too careful for that. On the other hand, Spade taunts Joel and Wilmer to rile them up and catch them off guard, and Brigid carefully uses her beauty to charm Archer and, presumably, Thursby and Captain Jacobi. But the big talk and big body don’t get such narrative privilege: Nothing suggests Gutman must be the heaviest, most garrulous character in the novel.

So why is he? On the one hand, it's his greed. The space must be his, just like the Falcon, but it's deeper than that. It's not just a need for space, but the ability to reach out and extend himself. He reached out to a Russian General, the Orient, Hong Kong, and San Francisco, crossing the world in search of the falcon, and, it's insinuated, he has the criminal connections to do so, and money never seems to be an issue for him. Nor does escaping the official police. When haggling with Spade over what to do, Gutman insists all will be well, while Spade insists otherwise. Gutman figures all will be well probably because all has been well for him up to this point.

Gutman's physical traits and habits neatly line up with his motivations and actions as a character. Comfortably corpulent, greedy, far reaching, and, as he believes, safe. He is able to be the man pulling the strings and shows his cards because he's sure he can act with impunity and evade detection and capture.

Foiling Spade: Joel Cairo

Disclaimer: I feel I need to point out that I’m discussing a novel that’s almost 90 years old, written in a less respectful time. When I discuss homosexuality, masculinity, and femininity in this post, it is in that time’s context.

Which character in The Maltese Falcon: was brought into the mystery by Brigid O'Shaughnessey, is betrayed by Brigid, forms an uneasy alliance with Gutman, and carries a gun?

At first, it might seem like Sam Spade, but Spade, early in the novel, says he doesn't like carrying a gun (18), and never does in the novel. These characteristics instead describe Joel Cairo. These simple similarities, and this one difference, suggest there are more points of comparison and contrast, more similarities and differences that set these characters in opposition to each other. In other words, the foil to one another. Not in the sense they impede or spoil one another's plans or goals but that the traits of a foil character highlight the traits of another, whether they are similar or different, usually different. If we can look at one aspect of Spade, like how he got involved in the mystery, we can find similarities in Cairo's narrative, and by contrasting these similar situations and how the characters act and are represented in them, we learn more about one character, and the other as well.

Take, for example, their first meeting, when Cairo pulls his gun on Spade in his, Spade’s, office. Spade goes along with it until he's able to attack Cairo, thrusting his elbow at him, knocking him out. Cairo may be the one with the gun, but here and elsewhere, Spade shows he's good enough with his arms and fists he can get by. Even after Spade returns Cairo's loaded gun to him, and Cairo turns it back on him, Spade lets Cairo search the room, confident he won't shoot him, nor find the bird. Spade isn't afraid to get his hands dirty, whereas Cairo is much more of a dandy, right down to the spats on his shoes and the effeminate items in his apartment. Similarly, later in the novel when Wilmer Cook needs to be restrained, Cairo (and Gutman) try to hold him down, Spade uses him like a punching bag, knocking him out and carrying him to the couch. This makes Spade a mix of masculine violence and chivalry against Cook’s more aggressive violence and homosexuality. Once Cook is on the couch, unconscious and after he wakes, Cairo is there beside him, preening over him.

Who does Sam Spade comfort? At one point or another, all the women (all four of them) are comforted by Spade, even if he does, in his late 1920's chauvinism, treat all women more or less the same. He promptly gives them pet names like “angel” and is willing to flirt and kiss them. It doesn't matter whether it's his client, secretary, lover, or someone he just met: for Spade, women are women, and women are for flirting (among other things) and protecting, similar to how Cairo treats Cook. What about how Cairo treats women? We don't know. He only ever interacts with Brigid. When he appears at Spade's office, Effie Perine is on her way out, so they interact only briefly, giving us hardly enough to read into. As for his relationship with Brigid, it's strictly business, which could, in and of itself, be why she abandoned him for Thursby: she couldn't manipulate him like she could Thursby.

While Spade and Cairo are ready foils for one another, this comparison reminds us of one of the main ways we learn about characters and the social spheres they represent: how they interact with other characters. Spade, even if he isn't an official policeman (and is hounded by the police and officials throughout the novel), ultimately does what is right and brings the villains to justice, aligning himself with the officials, in purpose if not in method. Similarly, Cairo, at novel's end, agrees to go with Gutman, literally aligning himself with the villainous criminals. Cairo may not have been the most law abiding of individuals from the beginning, but he only solidifies this standing by going with Gutman. Herein marks perhaps the primary difference and similarity between them: neither is the most honest, both are willing to break laws and rules to benefit themselves, but while they may stand near one another, they both face in opposite directions: one to justice, the other to crime.

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>

We're not sad: The death of Miles Archer

As if the title of this post doesn’t spell it out, Miles Archer, the partner of The Maltese Falcon’s protagonist Sam Spade, dies. It isn’t a heroic or noble death after a novel’s worth of adventures and near misses designed to bring the two into harmony. To borrow a cinematic term, Archer dies off-screen between the first and second chapters.

So, what’s he there for? While there’s an argument to be made about Archer’s death getting the plot going, it would have been easier to just not have Archer at all. Why bother, then? Archer and his death, rather than creating sympathy, remorse, or advancing the plot, are acts of world building: they cue us to the laws and morals we’re dealing with in The Maltese Falcon.

As a person, Miles Archer is a cad. He's flirtatious, “appraising” their client's, Miss Wonderly’s, form, and is quite keen to take her case. After Spade tells him not to “dynamite her too much,” Archer declares, “Maybe you saw her first, Sam, but I spoke first.” Sam is more prudent, but doesn't condemn his partner's actions, remind him about Mrs. Archer (more on that), or point out the client is young enough to be his daughter. These aren’t gentlemen working for the sake of justice or craft, they’re guys.

And then comes Chapter 2, “Death in the Fog”, which opens with a telephone call waking Spade in the night. Only getting what Spade says, we learn someone's dead. The story follows Spade, almost step by step, to the crime scene where we learn Archer is the victim, and through this sequence, Spade shows little emotion, let alone remorse. We get nothing of Spade's thoughts, and he remains stolid and unemotional throughout: he approaches it as if it’s just another murder.

So how was their partnership? What did Spade think about his deceased partner? Two events answer this question. First, Spade instructs his secretary to have the “Spade & Archer” on their door changed to “Samuel Spade”, literally expunging his memory from their offices. Second, when Spade takes the widowed Mrs. Archer into his office, the two kiss like the boat is sinking. Her mourning is rendered superficial and she’s willing to continue her affair with her late husband’s partner, even if he isn’t. Everyone just worries about themselves because they all have something they’re hiding.

The result of all this is, when Miles Archer is dead, no one – not his partner, wife, secretary, or even the reader – is saddened by the tragedy. There's a little anger and frustration, but there's no emphatic eulogizing, remorse or regrets. His brief appearance in Chapter 1 shows an unsavory, albeit not villainous, fellow, so it isn’t much of a loss. We don’t even know how good a detective he was, and Sam and Mrs. Archer benefit from his death. Everyone is too busy looking out for their own safety and keeping track of their lies to care about, let alone mourn, someone’s death.

I find the death of Miles Archer interesting and significant, not just for The Maltese Falcon, but for the genre as a whole: we're given a pair of detectives, little to go off of to understand them, and when there's a death, nothing is done to give us any reason to mourn. I can't even call Archer's murder a symbolic death of the noble private detective, men like Holmes because he's the opposite of that archetype, nor is his death symbolic of the death of these kinds of characters because of Sam's own double dealing with Mrs. Archer and the other characters. Archer's death is an indication of the kind of world we're entering: one where no one is to be trusted, everyone holds something back, no one cares much for each other, and people die; where heroes can be as despicable as the villains and the villains appear as innocent as schoolgirls, blurring the lines between good and bad and pitching the black and white of Holmes' world into a sea of gray.

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Works Cited

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

Frames, Honesty, and The Maltese Falcon

Most detective stories start out in a similar fashion: a client goes to the detective and enlists their help resolving a mystery or righting some wrong. The Maltese Falcon is no different. It opens with Ms. Wonderly hiring Spade & Archer to help her find her sister who has run off with a man named Floyd Thursby. She pays them generously for their work, generously enough, that Spade doesn’t believe her story.

This places Spade at a disadvantage: as a detective, he’s supposed to fill in the gaps, to complete incomplete narratives. If a detective were told a complete story, there'd be little need for them. In this respect, detective fiction owes something to frame narration.

However, in most frame narratives, there will be a chapter or so introducing the main narrative, only returning to that frame at the very end. Detective fiction takes this and puts it in a blender; or shoots the frame up with a tommy gun would be better. There are two main reasons for this: the first is the presence of many narratives within the main narrative for the detective to sift through, and the second is, like Ms. Wonderly, not everyone is honest.

Narrative Framing: As a detective detects, they seek out clues and witnesses, gathering information from them. The characters that populate a detective story will have different perspectives and experiences that relate to the case, and they will have different things to say and share. It's from these bits and pieces the detective solves the case. Detective fiction is therefore about narrative and narrative construction: it's a story of someone figuring out what really happened and then presenting it to the people involved at the end. Each time they speak with someone and get more information, they'll get a different frame and they need to figure out just how it fits with the main narrative, like a puzzle piece, and lob off whatever is unnecessary.

Character Honesty: Of course, most detective fiction relies on someone doing something dishonest or deceitful. If everyone was perfectly honest about everything, the detective would be obsolete. People don't like admitting to stealing, murder, or any number of other malfeasance, so it's up to the detective to find out who is lying, who is telling the truth. The separate fact from fiction and extrapolate the truth when people actively try to keep them from it.

Returning briefly to Sherlock Holmes stories, It's pretty much taken for granted that the clients tell the truth. They give Holmes a reliable piece of the puzzle immediately. However, in a post-war, cynical era where the author had professional detecting experience and was therefore probably lied to on a regular basis (I bet detectives get lied to much more often than physicians, or at least they'd be more serious lies), it stands to reason more people are going to lie, including those you’re supposed to trust.

Enter the characters of The Maltese Falcon, where the kinship and trust you had for Sherlock Holmes gets left in another century. Now, we have people who lie, cheat, steal, deceive, and it isn't clear what their motivations are: it could be business or pleasure, for personal gain or social justice. They fluctuate based on their needs to avoid bad situations, to get out of a dangerous spots with as little injury as possible to their pride and their bodies. And people get killed.

So, with The Maltese Falcon, we leave a world of black and white morality and enter a much grayer one.

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Works Cited

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