PB2: Analysis of Noir Conventions

O’Brien, Alex

Writ 2

9 August, 2016

Schranck

PB2: Analysis of Noir Conventions

Most, if not all literature seeks to gain favor among readers who can relate to the literary piece. As a result, it is common for a novel of any genre to target a certain audience in order to acquire considerable acclaim. A well-known genre in literature, American Noir, contains specific and commonly-found aspects, or conventions, that audiences, especially during the times of the genre’s rapid rise in the ranks of popularity many years ago, could connect their own lives with. Noir itself had begun to see growth around the unpredictable times of the Great Depression and World War II, when audiences felt constant senses of insecurity. Many were left frustrated with their misfortunes, and those who perceived corruption in their lives needed acknowledgement from any source willing to sympathize with their cause. The Noir genre did not disappoint, as writers such as Raymond Chandler utilized common conventions for favorable and sympathetic responses, such as the typical hardboiled detective, substances like alcohol and cigarettes, the femme-fatale, and the pursuit of money, in his most famous work of Noir fiction, The Big Sleep.

The hardboiled detective is the key staple in all forms of the Noir genre. His traits, including the cynical outlook on life and the tough aura around him make him an excellent character that people can both look up to and down upon for his role as an anti hero. The detective in The Big Sleep, Philip Marlowe, symbolizes the inescapable fate of one who is hapless enough to endlessly search for meaning in a world where only crime, deception and selfishness forever run rampant. Raymond Chandler made Marlowe a character who, like many people, were forced to live in a world where others would take advantage of each other at every turn. As a result, Marlowe must adopt the appearance of an emotionless man who was “...neat, clean, shaved and sober, and...didn’t care who knew it” (Chandler).

Almost exclusively in the Noir genre resides the femme-fatale, the seemingly favorable deuteragonist who turns out to be the secret evil responsible for a potential downfall of the primary protagonist. Lust serves as a main motive for violence in many crime stories, which leads the main character to ruin after a fit of passion. It also serves as another convention seen and used so frequently in the genre, for it accurately represents the aspect of human desire that many never get the benefit of having or obtaining. Chandler uses this method of rhetoric to acknowledge that the present world is surrounded by gilded beauty, and to warn all individuals from falling prey to those “...worth a stare…” for they are most likely “...trouble…” (Chandler).

Finally, and most commonly, Chandler frequently illustrated the use of alcohol and cigarettes as substances that all men and women needed in order to cope with a cruel world, and the use of money as the rotten, yet only reliable means of success. The Great Depression had left so many impoverished that many felt the need to drown their sorrows away with alcohol and escape reality through heavy smoking. Thus, the slightest prospect of money made most people even more desperate than they could have imagined, and in turn, the wealthy were looked down upon as the rotten of the bunch. The implication that the author Chandler harbored such a belief is not completely invalid. When Marlowe glances off into the distance from his client’s mansion, he sees “...some of the old wooden derricks of the oilfield from which the Sternwoods made their money,” symbolically implying that they had gotten their hands dirty in exchange for a great deal of wealth (Chandler).

The deceptive aspects of society that people despised further popularized the Noir genre in the early-to-mid 20th century, due to commonly held beliefs and views of cynicism that lay in the conventions of the genre. Raymond Chandler was one of the few authors of his time to effectively use the conventions of his time to develop the Noir literary genre, as his intent to display the ever-present evils in society still reverberate today, as the genre has stood the test of time and remained popular today.