In my last post, I emphasized the difficulty in defining Noir, the origin of the term Noir, and I brought up how it is a term that does not help the readers or viewers understand the genre. I would like to retract my statement. I disagree with myself from a week ago. I argue now that the word “Noir” is the most perfectly coined term to describe the genre and its themes. It’s more than just about dark corruption among the characters and their world, it is about the false hope of receiving justice. The characters chase the light but keep finding themselves pulled into their darkness.
Noir is starting to feel like a walking paradox with the stories being full of absurdity, but still being plausible. Let’s take the Femme Fatale as an example. These female characters are always draped in white from head to toe with bleach blond hair to represent their innocence and purity when in fact their characters cause the most harm to the main character. They are a walking contradiction. Let’s take a look at another example, the detectives in the Noir books we have read so far are meant to be upholders of justice when in reality they give the reader an uncanny feeling and have this moral ambiguity. This character complexity brings realistic characters to life.
I still stand by what I said last week that Noir is difficult to define, and in my opinion, the reason for this has to do with defining abstraction and making the abstraction tangible. When that really shouldn’t be the way of addressing Noir in the first place. Before I elaborate let me first define abstraction or abstract. I’m using these words to reference the concepts in Noir like psychological violence and warfare, hopelessness, and corruption. These concepts don’t feel tangible and when trying to do a deep analysis of Noir, it becomes difficult. An example, of tangible themes, are the anti-hero, the femme fatale, greed, and the want to have the “unattainable.” We should try approaching Noir as books for pleasure to understand it deeply, not as a class assignment. A “class assignment perspective” has the potential to dull the mind when trying to take in the themes and culture of the books. Let’s Keep in mind I’ve only read two books of Noir some of these themes might change or take more of a shape later on. This feels a bit ridiculous to talk about as an English major when all we deal with is abstraction but isn’t that what makes our field of study a paradox in itself? We try so hard to define and make palpable what we read and study for our own understanding when some things are just never meant to be put in words. Not every feeling has a word to define, and Noir is a genre with abstractions that I am barely beginning to understand.
Skip to content
