So far in our course, we have touched on the idea of race in the world of Noir and what it means to be a foreigner or not from the United States. While reading Farewell My Lovely, I learned that the world of Noir can be diverse and not only consist of white people. In The Maltese Falcon, I learned that the world is much smaller than it used to be with the development of transatlantic travel. Bringing these two aspects into conversation with each other, I am having a hard time defining what it then means to be a foreigner. I would argue that the role of the foreigner is not correct in terms of being foreign in the sense of not from the United States, but rather foreign as in unfamiliar to the characters.
In Farewell My Lovely, many characters take on the role of a foreigner, mainly black characters, people of color, or even characters from a different class, many of which are from the United States. Having taken courses that explore the dimensions of race and class in the United States throughout multiple periods in time, I have always seen these divides as very distinct, therefore, anything outside of what you would consider normal would be foreign to you. We see that a lot in Farewell My Lovely, as many of these characters are trying to cling to what they think is normal through nostalgia. Through this concept of the foreigner, I find it interesting as to how people of different races are perceived. In The Maltese Falcon, there are people from all over the world interacting, but characters such as Brigid O’Shaughnessy are also seen as foreigners, even though I would argue she is not any different from a character such as Spade, who is supposed to embody what it means to be a “typical American.” All in all, there is a fear of change and the unknown in the world of Noir, which I would say is like our own, and this fear is very much getting intertwined with issues of race, class, and even gender, broadening our definition of what it means to be a foreigner.