Jim,
I see two main arguments you are using to support Sam's
morality. The first is his claim that he might not be as
crooked as people think. Unlike you, I don't see this as a
significant indication that Sam is moral. Even if he stood up
in front of a million people on TV and declared he wasn't a
crook, I wouldn't find it convincing. What I do find
convincing is his revelation a moment later: "Well, a lot of
money would have been at least one more item on the other
side of the scales." That statement tells me that with a big
enough payoff, Brigid might have gone free. Sam is not
weighing right and wrong. He is weighing what is good for
Sam. He is a self-serving pragmatist.
Your second argument supporting Sam's morality centers around
the fact that Sam resists temptation. I don't equate this to
morality. A would-be mass murderer stands in the shadows of a
nighttime street scene. He is about to step forward and start
shooting innocent people when a cop car pulls to the curb. He
steps back into the shadows and, even though he wants to do
it badly, decides not to. So by resisting temptation and
deciding against murder he has demonstrated morality, right?
Not hardly. His motivation, like Sam Spade's, is rooted in
self-preservation, not morality.
Beyond this, let me quote a few of Sam's reasons for not
letting Brigid go:
"Fourth, no matter what I wanted to do now it would be
absolutely impossible for me to let you go without having
myself dragged to the gallows with the others."
"Next, I've no reason in God's world to think I can trust you
and if I did this and got away with it you'd have something
on me that you could use whenever you happened to want
to."
"The sixth would be that, since I've also got something on
you, I couldn't be sure you wouldn't decide to shoot a hole
in me some day."
All these reasons are blatantly self-centered. Sam is not
above invoking morals, but only when they fit his
self-interest. From his affair with his partner's wife in the
beginning to his final admission that a genuine falcon could
have tipped the scales and set Brigid free, the text
consistently portrays a Sam whose dominant interest is
himself, with few, if any, morals.
miker
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