Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe: An American Character
Philip Marlowe, as presented in Raymond Chandler’s novels, especially The Big Sleep, The Long Goodbye, and Farewell, My Lovely, presents a distinctly American character.
Marlow has a personal moral code. It does not seem to be based on anything—authority, scripture, law code—besides his own experiences with life. His life as been a struggle: with success, with insubordination, with putting himself in difficult situations. He knows he will not find the truth unless he takes risks. And the truth is not a grand all-encompassing truth (at first glance) but a truth covering a specific issue in time and place. It involves someone, a nobody, being hurt. Marlowe himself is a nobody (as people keep telling him), trying to help nobodies, like war veteran and alcoholic Terry Lennox, or the dying, forgotten old man, General Sternwood, or a sleazy blackmailer who is killed, Lindsay Marriot, or other low-life’s.
Life is a priority to Marlowe. If someone’s life is taken there has been a basic crime against Marlow’s sense of morality. If someone is trying to lie, such as the authorities, he wants to find the truth. Truth, like life, is a priority. Self-respect is also part of his moral code. He is not Christian, but he clearly believes in “do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.” He wants people to treat him honestly and with respect, as he does others. He believes in hard work. He does not believe in handouts. He believes we deserve what we get—what we put into life we get back accordingly. Hard work leads to results. Laziness gets no results.
But as he lives according to his personal moral code, he struggles. With boredom, loneliness, anonymity, insufficient income—and he deals with it by self-medication with booze and cigarettes.
Sometimes his honesty gets him in trouble. No dissimulation with him. He tells it like it is and has to deal with the consequences. He wants honesty back, no matter how painful it is to hear.
Is he a representative of the American character? He has no birthright. He fights for what he can get. He is no nonsense. He believes in truth. He believes in honesty. He believes in work. He believes in minding his own business. He believes in treating others as he wants to be treated. He has an inherent sense of equality respecting the poor, racial and ethnic groups, the law, and justice. Equality applies to all—the only exceptions are the degenerate and criminal, and they still deserve justice. Justice is hard to come by; one must work for it. Do not give up. Truth, honesty, self-respect, justice, are all often out of reach. But they are still there; they still exist.
This is the moral point of view as formed by the Great Depression, World War II, and its aftermath. It is the moral point of view of 1776, the new nation, the American as Crevecoeur defined it, as De Toqueville defined it, as Lincoln annunciated it, as Wilson expressed it in appealing to Americans, and to the world, to fight for and defend it.
Mobsters, dirty cops, politicians, the wealthy, druggies, ideologues, degenerates, any enemy, cannot get in the way of this Americanness. Marlowe fights for the America that he believes in.
Marlow has a personal moral code. It does not seem to be based on anything—authority, scripture, law code—besides his own experiences with life. His life as been a struggle: with success, with insubordination, with putting himself in difficult situations. He knows he will not find the truth unless he takes risks. And the truth is not a grand all-encompassing truth (at first glance) but a truth covering a specific issue in time and place. It involves someone, a nobody, being hurt. Marlowe himself is a nobody (as people keep telling him), trying to help nobodies, like war veteran and alcoholic Terry Lennox, or the dying, forgotten old man, General Sternwood, or a sleazy blackmailer who is killed, Lindsay Marriot, or other low-life’s.
Life is a priority to Marlowe. If someone’s life is taken there has been a basic crime against Marlow’s sense of morality. If someone is trying to lie, such as the authorities, he wants to find the truth. Truth, like life, is a priority. Self-respect is also part of his moral code. He is not Christian, but he clearly believes in “do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.” He wants people to treat him honestly and with respect, as he does others. He believes in hard work. He does not believe in handouts. He believes we deserve what we get—what we put into life we get back accordingly. Hard work leads to results. Laziness gets no results.
But as he lives according to his personal moral code, he struggles. With boredom, loneliness, anonymity, insufficient income—and he deals with it by self-medication with booze and cigarettes.
Sometimes his honesty gets him in trouble. No dissimulation with him. He tells it like it is and has to deal with the consequences. He wants honesty back, no matter how painful it is to hear.
Is he a representative of the American character? He has no birthright. He fights for what he can get. He is no nonsense. He believes in truth. He believes in honesty. He believes in work. He believes in minding his own business. He believes in treating others as he wants to be treated. He has an inherent sense of equality respecting the poor, racial and ethnic groups, the law, and justice. Equality applies to all—the only exceptions are the degenerate and criminal, and they still deserve justice. Justice is hard to come by; one must work for it. Do not give up. Truth, honesty, self-respect, justice, are all often out of reach. But they are still there; they still exist.
This is the moral point of view as formed by the Great Depression, World War II, and its aftermath. It is the moral point of view of 1776, the new nation, the American as Crevecoeur defined it, as De Toqueville defined it, as Lincoln annunciated it, as Wilson expressed it in appealing to Americans, and to the world, to fight for and defend it.
Mobsters, dirty cops, politicians, the wealthy, druggies, ideologues, degenerates, any enemy, cannot get in the way of this Americanness. Marlowe fights for the America that he believes in.
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