--- Raymond Tait <
raymond.tait@cai.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> I would say if you are making a case for The
Maltese
> Falcon as a noir
> novel then Brigid is the character to focus
on
> rather than Sam Spade.
> If Spade was a true noir character he would
have
> gone down with her somehow.
I can't see Brigid as a tragic noir villianess like Cora, for
example. Brigid is pathologically manipulative with no
redeeming virtues except her beauty. Spade knows this when he
meets her. Brigid fools no one except perhaps Thursby, Miles
Archer and Captain Jacoby. The rest of the important males in
the book are sociopaths with homosexual tendencies and are
not moved by Brigid at all. Spade understand all too well how
these types of criminals think. One wonders where he learned
it, as their pathology is very complex and involved. Guttman
even warns Spade that Brigid is dangerous. In the movie at
least you can see that Bogart's Spade is being sarcastic when
he acknowledges Guttman's warning. He knows how crazy she is.
This fact undermines even his fondness for Effie and his
willingness to use her to his own ends. Note he sends this
psycho to stay with his secretary AND her invalid mother,
knowing full well that she's a dangerous person being
followed by dangerous people. But note also, while Wilma
killed Jacoby, it was Brigid who killed Miles & Thursby.
You can argue that in Wilma's mind it was necessary to kill
Jacoby to reclaim the Falcon. But there was no reason at all
for Brigid to murder either Miles or Thursby. It was a crazy
thing to do. On the scale of most evil, Wilma is about a 7,
psychopath who kills for profit at the behest of a superior,
while Brigid O'Shannassey is at 16, psychopath who kills for
no reason.
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