Chandler, a Look into the Morals of the Big Sleep

Gianluca Allen

per. 2 Colloquium

Chandler, A Look into the Morals of The Big Sleep

Morality is an attribute related to many heroes and is given by teachers and elders as the key aspect to living a good life. Many view the world, and the people it it, as generally moral, with amorality and immorality being deviations from the normal. However, Raymond Chandler, in his book The Big Sleep, presents a very different view. Instead of the world being populated with generally moral people, those who follow the law and who are honest, it is filled with the immoral, with vice, corruption, and greed. Even the heroes of the story are not the common exemplar knights, but men who must be dishonest and lawbreakers in order to accomplish even the slightest achievement for the greater good. In The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler presents a dark and corrupted picture of L.A., its people, and its law enforcement during the 1930s; a world and people, it seems, where immorality and dishonesty dominate while morality and honesty are weak and useless ideals, and only those who break conventional morality and laws in order to produce a greater good are able to achieve their goals and aid in the seemingly futile effort against evil.

There is almost no character present in The Big Sleep, major or minor, who does not have some kind of skeleton in their closest or insidious vice. From Brody and his bribing schemes to Carol Lundren who shoot Brody for revenge to even the butler Norris who is constantly covering up the events at Sternwood Manor. Even characters we see very little of are filled with immorality, like Larry Cobb who's only quality is his alcoholism. Perhaps the most insidious of them all are the Sternwood girls, Carmen Sternwood and Vivian Reagan. Both, by the standards of morality, should be well-educated proper women, growing up in such a rich and prosperous family, but that is not the case. Vivian, the smart one, is shown to be a consistent gambler, constantly betting all her money on roulette and even jeering at the croupier, when they can't cover her bet, that its "[their] money ... don't [they] want it back" (138). Carmen, who is the wild one, is even worse. She is constantly partying, drinking, and sleeping around. However there is even a darker side to Carmen as it is revealed later that she "turned the gun and shot [Reagan], just the way she tried to shoot at [Marlowe]" (226) because they wouldn't sleep with her. The theme of the rampant immorality is especially used to criticize the corruption and sin of the cops and other prominent public figures. The cops are criticized by Chandler through characters like Marlowe constantly commenting on their corruption. Throughout the novel its is said that the police need to be "told where to put their feet so they won't break an ankle" (106) and get caught in their corrupt acts and the "police allowed" places like Geiger's store "to operate, for their own reasons" (113) even though it is quite clear the place and the men running it are in violation of the law. In addition, Chandler' s use of rain and the setting of night gives the impression on the reader that nothing good or light exists in this dark world of depravity and sin. Chandler's dark moral view of the world he lived in and the people and law enforcement within, apparently filled with corruption and vice, is further amplified by the morals and actions of the "heroes" of the story.

In this dark world of Chandler's even the "heroes" have to resort to immoral acts in order to achieve any amount of success against their respected antagonists. Amorality seems to be the prevailing trait of heroes in this story. Even minor, "good" characters are not law-abiding men. Harry Jones and Bernie Ohls, both of whom seem to be on the side of some greater good, are both law-breakers in their own right, but they do it because its the only way they could accomplish their ,somewhat, noble aims. Even the main protagonist, Philip Marlowe, is no where near a shining exemplar of heroism. He constantly breaks the law and disobeys others orders in order to follow his own path, to protect his client. Marlowe seems to follow his own moral code, separate from the moral facade of Chandler's dark society, that centers around an almost knightly loyalty to "the client" (212). Marlowe freely admits that he will "break a few rules" even find very iffy loopholes around said rules as long as he thinks they are "[broken]...in your favor" (212). However, Marlowe isn't a blindly loyal knight, like the black knight of lore, he will not stand up for his client is "he's crooked" (213) and will not break the rules and cover for him if he wants Marlowe to go against the greater good, or his idea of the greater good. Marlowe sums up his character in the first few pages, when he sees a panel of