Crime Fiction: The Hard-boiled Detective

In Raymond Chandler’s essay ”The Simple Art of Murder” (1944) he introduces the world to his personal definition of a true hero in a new branch of crime-fiction. The essay circulates around a new type of crime story, having the real world as its steppingstone. Contrary to the typical British so-called Golden Age Detective Fiction, this sort of crime story reflects itself in the real world, a decentred world. A world that undermines basic predicates, such as order, stability, causality and resolution. Writers who occupy themselves writing these stories strive against describing a centerless world, in order to capture reality and put it straight to paper. He describes it as, “…not a very fragrant world… but continues”…it is the world you live in.” (p. 197)

Chandler singles out Dashiell Hammet as the one person who actually rescued crime fiction by bringing it back to the people, in a renewed version, that embodies life in the hard-boiled world. According to Chandler, the hero, solving crimes in a ruthless city containing only people with a perverse satisfaction of being corrupt, must be a man of certain character: “He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man.” (p. 197), saying that the detective, if necessary has to have the ability to identify himself with anyone, and simultaneously also be able to elevate himself from the general population, in order to create distance from the violence-torn local society. With no repository of justice, this man must therefore be “…a man of honour, by instinct by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it.” (p. 197) , he is the one individual who must serve justice, when society does not. Chandler applies with claiming that Hammett’s writings show us “the seamy side of things” (p. 196), it provides the reader a more associable world, containing unstable authorities and dark streets where no man can walk safely, because law and order is only talked about, but is not at all practised.

In a hard-boiled crime fiction text, people are not who you assume they are. The usage of misleading appearances are crucial and are certainly required when talking about a persona attempting to re-establish order in a world afflicted with savagery.
In the short story by “They Can Only Hang You Once”, the hard-boiled protagonist, Sam Spade introduces himself in an entry line by saying, “My name is Ronald Ames”, maybe because he already from outset is aware of everyone in the household’s misrepresentations. His ability to see through someone’s identity is strongly indicated in this story. Somehow, he is trying to act as some sort of catalyser, catalysing events, which is seen when he notifies Timothy Binnett that his own butler has been peeking though his keyhole, in doing so, he is actually directly responsible in Timothy’s killing of the butler. Ultimately, Spade is in some instances a guilty party in the violent happenings played out in Hammett’s stories.
The very direct method of his is strongly present in this text, an example of this appears when Spade enters the room containing two members of the Binnett family, Joyce Court and the body of Molly. When being informed that Molly is indeed dead, he rapidly says, “Police, emergency hospital – phone” (p. 60), devoid of anything approaching patience or confusion. Instead he comes off as the experienced detective with scars of a challenging career as well as life in general, still in order to maintain slightly humorous while solving his case, he is so to say, a man of many colours. In order to be this versatile, one cannot just be anyone; one must be enlightened with the sense of proportion, being able to distinguish between truthful and dishonest personalities, Spade has the ability to do so. Even though the reader is not informed, Spade has a gift of fumbling with the puzzle-pieces behind his back, putting it together, even before clues or revelations of any matter has been revealed.
To finish, it is to be said, that Spade stand forth as a character with a huge ego, who has a wish to convict the murder on his own, and in that case inform him, that he will get his punishment, a punishment that would’ve never been granted, if there was only the government to wield criminality. As expressed by Chandler in a longer version of his essay, “American literature has reached a point where the individual must attend to criminality, due to the corruption of the authorities. One must- and can only trust himself, and no one but himself”, which also explains why Spade works on his own.
When linking the example of Spade’s rapid saying when discovering the body of Molly, and the quote from section two “He must be a man of…” it is fair to conclude, that Hammett’s detective lives up to Chandler’s definition. Spade is most certainly a man of honour, he knows what he’s capable of and is not afraid to get his hands dirty, referring to his influence in getting Jarboe, the butler killed, and still remain unaffected.

“He talks as the man of his age talks, that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness” (p. 197), is probably the part of Chandler’s definition describing Spade in the best way possible on the basis of the exact part of Spade’s personality becoming apparent in “They Can Only Hang You Once”. Spade treats his case with a humorous approach in his back pocket, and with a soul, that does not in any way let himself stimulate by money, seeing that, he has a firm belief in money-grubbing being dishonest, contrary to himself, who has the ability to act honestly, and give the inhabitants the justice, that the government does not have the smallest trace of.