----- Original Message ----- From:
bsandyman@att.net
> If we accept that Sam is amoral, then aren't we left
to wonder at what
> a startling coincidence it is that his pragmatic
solution is also the
> moral one?
I, for one, do not think that Spade is amoral. While some
have made much of Spade's character flaws, painting him as an
anti-hero, perhaps this is really a continuation of Hammett's
theme in the novel of contrasting reality with appearance.
Spade may look like a devil, but I think that he is at heart
a man struggling with his moral code. At the novel's close,
he turns the woman he thinks he might love over to the police
for the murder of his partner (whom he did not even like).
Whether he does so because of principle or to avoid becoming
"the sap" is unclear, I think; Spade himself does not seem to
know the answer. Life is struggle, Hammett seems to be
saying, and those who say they know the answers are either
liars or delusional. Perhaps the same is true of those who
say they understand Spade.... (And I include myself in that
last indictment.)
~Marc
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