Egocentrism

“When he had finished he made and drank a cup of coffee. Then he unlocked the kitchen-window, scarred the edge of its lock a little with his pocket-knife, opened the window–over a fire escape–got his hat and overcoat from the settee in the living-room, and left the apartment as he had come.” (Page 91, 3rd Paragraph)

 

This passage occurs the morning after Brigid O’Shaughnessy stayed with Sam Spade as a result of his deceit. Though she had intended to leave the evening prior, he convinced her it was not safe to travel, tricking her into staying with him. While she slept, Spade removed her apartment key from her pocket and gained access to her home. His plan was to thoroughly search for the falcon while not alerting her to his presence in her home. To ensure she would not place the blame of searching her apartment on him, he took extra precautions to stage her apartment to appear it had been broken into. He opened the window over the fire escape and intentionally scarred the lock. By doing this, he knew Brigid would assume the scarred lock meant forced entry and the fire escape would have been the route the perpetrator had taken, drawing the suspicion away from him.

The underlying message of this passage is that Sam Spade is motivated by egocentrism. It was the main motivating factor that drove Sam Spade to deceive Brigid and go to her apartment with hopes of uncovering the falcon. Once he found out that there were others in search of the falcon, his desire to be the first to locate this highly sought after object increased. If he found it, others would recognize his superior investigative abilities and would be willing to bargain with him for possession of the falcon. He would gain recognition for his expertise. The second way this passage exemplifies Spade’s selfish desires is through his actions with Brigid. At the beginning of the novel, he accepted Brigid’s case both because she acted terribly upset and helpless when she first entered his office and because he found her attractive. He realized that taking her case would place the two of them in closer proximity. Preceding the above excerpt, Brigid had kissed Spade. She then stayed over night with him, having been manipulated to believe Sam cared for her well-being, when in actuality, he persuaded her to stay because he knew that if a kiss had already been initiated, there might be further relations. He also plotted to take her key and investigate further while she slept, having lured her into falsely believing his intentions were to keep her safe. This passage clearly demonstrates that this was false: Sam’s intentions were purely selfish, to gain both the falcon and notoriety and respect.