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Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep

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Raymond Chandler’s book “The Big Sleep” is a complex murder mystery with numerous characters, each of whom story intersects with the other in some way. There are several women characters; however, all of their stories rely on men. Nonetheless, Chandler make it so that each women has her own individual personality and each female character is treated uniquely throughout the text. The names of these characters are Vivian Sternwood, Carmen Sternwood, Agnes and Mona Grant. In discussing Chander’s treatment of these characters, I will discuss the overall similarities and differences, then I will compare the two Sternwoods and lastly compare them to Agnes and Mona. From this book, it appears that Chandler has two distinct ways in which he depicts …show more content…
They all are depicted as to have an attraction to men with either power, confidence, a dangerous lifestyle or money. Vivian was married to a man named Terrence Regan—a rough bootlegger from Ireland that once commanded a whole brigade. Carmen was attracted to pretty much any man that was masculine. Agnes was the girlfriend of Joe Brody and then of Harry Jones, both men were criminals with tough personalities. Lastly, Mona was the wife of Eddie Mars, a man that stood against everything the protagonist Marlowe stood for so he was the bad guy. Moreover, he was responsible for majority of the murders in the story either directly or indirectly. It is also important to state that each other these women, excluding Agnes, were attracted to Marlowe—a hard boiled private detective that could not be persuaded by a woman’s body. The similarity in the men they are attracted to play an important role in the way these characters are …show more content…
A significant difference because she is portrayed as being stronger and in control of herself. She is aware of her high level of beauty just as her sister is and she uses it to her advantage. For instance, when her and Marlowe leave from gambling at Eddie Mars’s house she kisses him in an attempt to cease his interrogation of her. Unlike her sister, Vivian is depicted as wanting to protect her father and the family name. She is concerned about ensuring the dirt on her sister is contained because she does not want Carmen to be in any trouble. Moreover, she doesn't want their father finding out about the evil side of Carmen. Vivian is very conniving btu she does not merely rely on her beauty, she is intelligent as well. She pays off Eddie Mars to hide the truth about Regan’s death and does well in deceiving Marlowe throughout the novel. She is also clever because she does well in displaying her likeness of Marlowe as genuine. When Marlowe continued to question her after she kissed him, she became upset in a way that implied that she was upset because he would not show her affection. This was a ploy to distract Marlowe. The minor female characters are not depicted as being as conniving as the Sternwood

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