Narratives of Detection

Abstract

Raymond Chandler, who began publishing around the time that Hammett stopped writing, takes a different course from his predecessor regarding the representation of women. While Hammett begins with a formula of sentimentality and medicalization in The Dain Curse, before adopting a criminalization model in The Maltese Falcon, and finally presenting a model of the female detective in his later works, Chandler consistently depicts lethal women whose representations are nonetheless closely connected to his detective Philip Marlowe.⁹⁹ While Chandler’s criminal femmes fatales stand as foils to Marlowe in his professional and moral capacity, they destabilize the status of the detective as “hero” and question his apparent superiority.¹⁰⁰ The narratives achieve this through the representational dynamics that Chandler uses to portray female characters who are not always visible in the sense that they do not dominate the narratives with an overpowering presence and we do not see them commit criminal acts. Their agency is located, however, in what I will call (in)visible roles. That is, despite or because of indirect avenues through which female power is mobilized, Chandler’s narratives invite us to see the roles of the criminal femme fa tale and their dominance through their interactions with Marlowe. This intermingling of woman’s visibility and her power troubles the criminological premise that considers the invisibility of women merely as a site for neglect and lack of female power. This chapter, therefore, shows that absence and a complicated interplay between visibility and invisibility of the criminal femmes fatales especially against the presence of the detective, can operate as a vehicle for rereading the powerful effect of female roles in Chandler’s work.