Lecture 3: How Characters Are Different from People
and because 7KH0DOWHVH)DOFRQ is written in the third person,
Spade does not directly address us. Everything we know about
Sam Spade we learn from observing him move and listening to
him talk, the same way we would in real life.o At the end of the book, Spade must decide what do with Brigid
O’Shaughnessy, the femme fatale who murdered his partner,
but with whom Spade may or may not have fallen in love.
It’s an extreme situation, but Hammett doesn’t plunge us into
Spade’s thoughts or allow his character to speak directly to us;
instead, he lets us listen to a scene in which Spade thinks out
loud about his feelings for Brigid and the choice he must make.o The scene is a vivid portrayal of a man wrestling with a bad
situation. Although we don’t have access to Spade’s thoughts,
we do have access to the dark world in which he lives.
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Spade’s consciousness, but he understands Spade and his moral
universe every bit as deeply as Woolf understands Clarissa
Dalloway’s or as Fitzgerald understands Nick’s.Fitzgerald, 7KH*UHDW*DWVE\.
Forster, $VSHFWVRIWKH1RYHO.
Hammett, 7KH0DOWHVH)DOFRQ.
Woolf, 0UV'DOORZD\.Suggested Reading