When I think of the Sam Spades in my life (and unfortunately, there are many), I am overwhelmed with a sense of spite and a desire to both humble and embarrass them. The boy I met at Domerfest who told me \u201cPeople say I look like Chris Evans,\u201d a student Senator who signs her email signature as \u201cFuture Supreme Court Justice \u201928,\u201d the CEO I met networking who refused to make eye contact with any females that came to his station\u2014they all elicit a certain reaction within me that makes me more violent and confrontational than I\u2019d like to admit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And yet, Sam Spade is a character I found myself not only rooting for but found myself wanting to get a chance to interact with. Sure, he\u2019s cocky and selfish, views women as a commodity and sees non-Anglo-Saxon people as less than himself, but for all his smart remarks and vanity, I have to wonder if some of that arrogance is deserved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Without inspecting his partner Miles’ body, without talking to any witnesses, Sam Spade utters two words that convince me that he has figured out the mystery 18 pages into the novel: \u201cDamn her.\u201d Spade\u2019s abnormal reaction to the death of his coworker prove that firstly, his relationship with Miles was strained, and that secondly, he knew what had happened. He has no desire to search his partner\u2019s corpse or to question Brigid, but instead returns home and got himself drunk, \u201cscowling\u201d as he thought about \u201cher.\u201d This \u201cher\u201d had to be Brigid, the woman who despite all of her tricks, lies, and wrongdoings, Spade invites back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps Spade has the same noxious relationship with Ms. O\u2019Shaughnessy that I share with him: an acknowledgement that the other is a bad person, that they have fatal flaws, and yet, a desire to be with them, to see their next clever move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou always think you know what you\u2019re doing,\u201d Effie warns Sam before he fully dives into the mess of the aftermath of the murder and the hunt for the Maltese Falcon. But perhaps, as Spade\u2019s words and actions prove at the end of the novel, this is because he does<\/em>, in fact, know what he\u2019s doing. He knows Brigid is evil and damned, and yet, he appreciates her figure and her sharp sense of wit and capitalizes upon this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the District Attorney later questions Sam on who killed Thursby, Sam replies that he doesn\u2019t know, and even if he did know, \u201c[he] wouldn\u2019t\u201d disclose it. \u201cEverybody,\u201d Spade says, \u201chas something to conceal,\u201d and in Spade\u2019s case, he chooses to conceal \u201c[his] guesses\u201d (145). This comes from a sense of pride, a desire to be the only one to solve the case and a superiority complex that while everyone is scrambling around, Sam Spade sits, surveying, knowing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps then, that is the reason why I love Sam Spade so much even though he is so womanizing and cocky: his confidence is justified. The Sam Spades in my life have never solved a murder hours after it occurred and certainly aren\u2019t as clever as the \u201cblond Satan\u201d himself, so they must be humbled. Sam Spade\u2019s toxicity, on the other hand, can be tolerated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I think of the Sam Spades in my life (and unfortunately, there are many), I am overwhelmed with a sense of spite and a desire to both humble and embarrass them. The boy I met at Domerfest who told me \u201cPeople say I look like Chris Evans,\u201d a student Senator who signs her email … Continue reading “Sam Spade’s Tolerable Toxicity”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4361,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4361"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59\/revisions\/65"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/blacknoir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}