59 pages • 1 hour read
Raymond ChandlerA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
The Big Sleep is a product of its time. Some of the social beliefs it reflects are today widely deplored. These attitudes and practices, though used as descriptors and not necessarily meant as polemics, betray the author’s biases.
Philip Marlow is a man of his age. It’s the mid-1930s, when the world struggled under the economic Great Depression. Marlowe, a hard-drinking, chain-smoking, tough-guy detective, possesses a macho sensibility coupled with a disdain for lifestyles of which he disapproves. Same-sex relationships in the late 1930s were frowned on or outlawed in nearly every jurisdiction in America. During this time, most Americans believed that being gay was immoral and that gay men were inherently less masculine and more flamboyantly feminine. Moreover, a common attitude among many Americans was that minorities were second-class citizens.
One of the novel’s antagonists is a gay blackmailer named Geiger who rents pornographic books. Not only is his sexual orientation used to explain why he is duplicitous, but Marlowe’s description of Geiger’s bedroom also contains deeply anti-gay and anti-Asian commentary based on stereotypes that tended to conflate homosexuality and Asian American men with effeminacy, thus packing a dose of sexism into the mix: Marlowe considers Geiger’s decor “womanish” and notes a “flounced” bedspread, perfume, and a triple mirror (27).
By Raymond Chandler
Farewell, My Lovely
Farewell, My Lovely
Raymond Chandler
The Lady in the Lake
The Lady in the Lake
Raymond Chandler
The Long Goodbye
The Long Goodbye
Raymond Chandler
The Simple Art Of Murder
The Simple Art Of Murder
Raymond Chandler
Trouble Is My Business
Trouble Is My Business
Raymond Chandler
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection
View Collection