As most of you know, I am preparing for a lengthy series of
doctoral
examinations in English and American literature. My committee
was kind
enough to allow several hard-boiled or semi-HB items on my
reading list
(_Little Caesar_, _High Sierra_, _The Asphalt Jungle_, _The
Maltese
Falcon_, _The Glass Key_, _The Front Page_, _Brighton Rock_,
_Appointment
at Samarra_, Willard Motley's _Knock on Any Door_, and the
Hemingway story
collection _Men Without Women_), as well as a number of
canonical works
containing a mystery, such as _Zadig_ and _The Moonstone_.
While reading,
I watch for links or similarities between items. A possible
connection
came up this morning that intrigues me, as it may shed new
light on one of
this list's favorite characters: Brigid O'Shaughnessey.
The character I have in mind, the villain of Alexandre Dumas'
_The Three
Musketeers_, can be described as follows:
* Name: Elizabeth de Bruie, a.k.a. the Countess de la Fere,
a.k.a. Lady
Clarick. The text refers to her mainly as "Milady."
* Age: 25. Skin: alabaster. Eyes: "blue and languid." Manner:
helpless
at first, then sly and seductive, and eventually savage. A
skilled liar.
* Occupation: International conspirator and jewel thief,
allied on-and-off
with the crafty Cardinal Richelieu.
* Method: Seduces a man, accepts gifts from him, and sets him
first
against his predecessor and then, if he survives, against her
other
enemies. As described by a near-victim: "Look at this woman:
she is young,
she is beautiful, she has all the seductions in the world;
well! she is a
monster who, at the age of twenty-five years, has been guilty
of as many
crimes as you could read in a year in the archives of our
tribunals. Her
voice prejudices one in her favor, her beauty serves as a
bait for her
victims, she even pays with her body what she has
promised--that much
justice must be done to her. She will attempt to seduce you;
she will
perhaps try to kill you."
* Current lover: A musketeer-in-training--that is, an armed
law
enforcement official, the 17th-century equivalent of a
policeman/detective,
but one who has not officially been accepted into their
ranks.
* Fate: Her lover arranges for her to be arrested and,
eventually,
executed. He does so in part because it is right, and in part
because of
her earlier (attempted) murder of his partner.
Based on these similarities, I believe that Brigid
O'Shaughnessey, a.k.a.
Miss Wonderly, a.k.a. Miss LeBlanc, is, if not a conscious
re-creation of
Milady, at least strongly influenced by her. Lillian Hellman
has said that
Hammett would become obsessed with an author or topic and
read until he had
exhausted the subject. We know that he was familiar with
Dumas: in "Fly
Paper," he borrowed, with due credit, a method of
undetectable murder from
the French author's _The Count of Monte Cristo_. Hammett's
other writings
frequently contain references to/borrowings from notable
books: everything
from _The Mystery of Udolpho_ to Zane Grey.
What do the rest of the list's _Falcon_ fans think? Do I have
a basis for
argument, or am I seeing something that isn't there? I'd be
most
interested to hear your thoughts.
Best,
Kathy
Katherine Harper
Department of English
Bowling Green State University
kharper@bgnet.bgsu.edu
Visit the W.R. Burnett Page at http://ernie.bgsu.edu/~kharper/
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