CHARACTER ANALYSIS ? SAM SPADE The mystery and the crime in are obviously paramount in the development and success of a good crime fiction novel, but anther key concern must certainly be the protagonist. Especially in hard-boiled fiction, where the detective is your eyes to the unknown world in which the novel is placed.
Dashiell Hammett has constructed Sam Spade in a way so the protagonist has become a feature of the book, rather than merely a medium for the transfer of clue and information in this novel. The reader is given the chance to venture in Spades mind and inner thoughts, Hammett cleverly allows Spade to expression his values, fears and opinions to the respondent and in turn allowing them to associate, trust and relate to him. In bringing the reader closer to the protagonist Hammett has subliminally lured the reader closer to the crime, the suspects and the victims and ultimately dragged them deeper into the noir world in which Sam Spade resides.
Frame from the 1941 public domain trailer for the ...
Cover of seminal hardboiled magazine Black Mask, S...
Grave of Samuel Dashiell Hammett, author of The Ma...Sam Spade, the detective-protagonist is aware that his best efforts are ultimately futile, to the extent that the corrupt urban environment will inevitably undercut and outlast his heroic attempts to see justice done, this sense of Spade wanting to achieve greater justice implies to the reader that Spade is essentially good and is resistant to the hostile world which he had devoted his life to combating. Raymond Chandler labels Hammetts character of Spade as a ?cynical, tough individual who maintains his code of honour in a world tarnished by deception and betrayal at all levels of society? In ?The Maltese Falcon? Spade is described as the "blond Satan." Whilst his objective and inner good is clear to the readers, other characters struggle to see Spade in his true light, and describe him as a ?wild...