Author: racheldegaugh

Emerging in the interwar years primarily in the United States, both modernism and noir express cynicism, nostalgia, and the cyclical nature of life. Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely is an edifice of noir. The central action of the plot revolves around mysteries or crimes that contribute to the downfall of protagonist Philip Marlowe; this is similar to the downfall of Sam Spade in Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon. Both white male protagonists face the anarchy of the 1930s and 1940s with cynicism, the belief that people only act in their own self-interest. Marlowe and Spade treat the people around them with bluntness and insensitivity to their emotions. Yet their unchanging moral codes appear to justify their contempt for greed and dishonesty. 

Not only that, but Marlowe and Spade are able to play in the moral shadows of their world without completely descending into its depths; this is because they are not considered to be “other.” Marlowe and Spade are required to complete both physical and metaphysical journeys that are cyclical in nature as antiheroes that paradoxically uphold moral codes. That is, Marlowe and Spade do not fit the descriptions of queer, black, female, and foreign characters that they consistently belittle. 

Nostalgia also plays an important role in the intersection between modernism and noir; the places that Marlowe and Spade used to know remain largely the same except for the “otherness” of the characters that have moved in. Even the definition of what it means to be white is changing. Both Brigid O’Shaughnessy and Velma Valento play the part of the femme fatale in these novels; the former is of Irish descent, and her pale skin and red hair are frequently described by Chandler in an effort to invoke a connotation of a foreign criminal. Velma, on the other hand, passes as white because she trades her red hair for a bleach blonde.

In attempting to form a comprehensive definition of noir and how it evolves to become black noir, it is necessary to identify five common characteristics of this ever-changing genre. These pillars include a grim assessment of human nature, gritty urban settings, a femme fatale, nostalgia, and morally compromised protagonists. The central action of the plot typically revolves around crimes or mysteries that often contribute to the downfall of the protagonist, who is willing to delve into the darkest aspects of human nature to paradoxically uphold a moral code or sense of authority. 

In Farewell, My Lovely Raymond Chandler approaches this classic American genre with an international perspective. Educated in English public schools for most of his childhood, Chandler maintains the facets of reinvention and uncharted wilderness that define American noir; the nature of society is a blank slate that the author forms from constantly-shifting socio-cultural factors. The novel is set in 1941 Los Angeles, the interwar period in which the cynicism of modernism flourishes and the social classes have lost touch with each other due to geographical compartments. 

Yet the basic structure of cycle and repetition that serves as the foundation for British literature also plays a pivotal role in redefining the genre of noir. Chandler utilizes hyperbole to isolate objects and indicate their values. This simultaneously creates two levels of consciousness: the objective external structure of the detective story and the subjective rhythm of events that seeks to mislead the reader. The novel is initially misleading as it is introduced as a murder mystery. Yet Chandler introduces a string of jewel thieves that intertwine with more murders in a cyclical manner.

The protagonist Philip Marlowe is a private detective whose first-person perspective allows the reader to learn not only the true nature of his thoughts but that of the world around him. Marlowe is honest to a fault, a quality that characters such as Detective Nulty (a representative of the ineptness and corruptibility of the world) and Anne Riordan (the femme fatale with beauty and brains) find repulsive yet trustworthy at the same time. Moreover, his character is able to show fear; Marlowe is able to navigate the widespread cynicism and anarchy of the 1930s and 1940s because he can perceive the darkness around him without rose-colored lenses.