47 pages • 1 hour read
Raymond ChandlerFarewell, My Lovely
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1940A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Marlowe Versus the Cops
One of the major themes of the novel is the tension between Marlowe and law enforcement. Since Marlowe is a private eye, he often investigates the same cases as the police. However, right from the beginning, it’s clear to see that Marlowe and the police share a feeling of resentment towards one another. In fact, this seems to be the case with every encounter Marlowe has with a detective or cop.
The first detective that Marlowe meets in the novel is Nulty. Marlowe describes him as being incompetent, and he talks to him with a sarcasm that leans towards disrespect. The fact that Nulty asks for Marlowe’s help in finding Velma adds to Nulty’s appearance of being inept at his job. This happens again with Randall. While Marlowe seems to respect him more than he does Nulty, Marlowe is the one who cracks the case, despite having been repeatedly warned by Randall to lay off.
While law enforcement officials usually represent justice, in the novel they are often corrupt pawns under the thumb of a higher authority. However, Marlowe is man that can’t be bought for a price. While many of his actions may be morally ambiguous, he is the one who ultimately solves the case, not law enforcement. This moral divide between Marlowe and the cops is magnified when Golbraith and Blane physically assault him at Amthor’s. Marlowe was at Amthor’s seeking the truth about what happened, but Golbraith and Blane have been paid off to harm Marlowe. In this way, Marlowe was following the law, while the two cops are breaking the law to do the bidding of someone above them. This juxtaposition between Marlowe being the just character and the cops being crooked is a theme that is developed and grows in complexity through the novel.
Marlowe as Anti-hero
Following one of the main conventions of noir fiction, Marlowe is best described as an anti-hero. He is a heavy drinker who lives on the fringe of society, living a bachelor’s life and running a financially-unsuccessful private-investigation business. He speaks crudely around women, and seems to be charismatic enough to get their attention but is by no means a gentleman. He isn’t married, and seems more interested in the dangerous woman than the girl-next-door. In these ways, he pushes against society’s expectation of what a man his age should be doing and how he should be living.
Although Marlowe ends up solving the mystery in the end, his journey towards that truth is full of mistakes and even failures. One of his first big mistakes is that he fails to see his own business card in Marriott’s wallet, despite having searched Marriott’s dead body. Later, he is so swept up by Mrs. Grayle’s beauty that he fails to realize she’s Velma until much later than he might have. He also fails to realize the danger he’s in at Amthor’s, and ends up critically injured. Yet, despite these failures, he still ends up the hero in the end, although his heroism results in two more deaths. Marlowe is the one who figures out that Mrs. Grayle is Velma, but that revelation gets Malloy shot and Velma commits suicide. It begs the question, had Marlowe let Randall handle the case, would these deaths have occurred?
Related Titles
By Raymond Chandler
