What I found interesting in this book is Chapter four, page 35, the description of conversation between Samuel Spade and Brigid O\u2019Shaughnessy. \u201cI haven\u2019t lived a good life,\u201d she cried. \u201cI\u2019ve been bad \u2013 worse than you could know \u2013 but I\u2019m not all bad. Look at me, Mr.Spade. You know I\u2019m not all bad, don\u2019t you? You can see that, can\u2019t you? Then can\u2019t you trust me a little?\u201d Here, Brigid used repeating rhetorical questions to ask Spade to believe what she said and keep begging him to help her. The repeat highlights her eagerness and helplessness. \u00a0And in the later part, she said \u201cI know this isn\u2019t fair of me. But be generous, Mr. Spade, don\u2019t ask me to be fair. You\u2019re strong, you\u2019re resourceful, you\u2019re brave. You can spare me some of that strength and resourcefulness and courage, surely. Help me, Mr. Spade.\u201d Here, the author creates the strand of Spade\u2019s capability. As the protagonist, Spade has got all features that indicate his masculine identity: callous, resolute, courageous. Meanwhile the characteristic of Brigid is quite sensitive, helpless, self-interested and also mysterious \u2013 which is a typical femme fatale<\/i> in noir film. I think the whole passage aims at building a contrast between powerful male character and timid female character; in that way it can help emphasize the personality of them. A big strong man and a weak beautiful lady, forming an expressive scene, imagine what sparkle they might ignite.<\/p>\n
Spade has always reacted as indifferent and ambiguous in the whole case so far. Yet according to Spade\u2019s response: \u201cYou won\u2019t need much of anybody\u2019s help. You\u2019re good. You\u2019re very good\u201d, we can see that he already caved in to her feminine charm more or less because this sentence is more than a comfort. I mean who can resist the incessant imploring from such a gorgeous beauty?\u00a0 Brigid has successfully made the best use of her gender advantage to build a lovingly pathetic image, therefore touching the softest part inside Spade\u2019s heart. \u00a0Also we need to notice that it\u2019s the first time that Brigid mentioned she had been worse than we could know but we still don\u2019t have certain idea about what she had done before, where the author leaves us a big suspense. Though Brigid seems to be very weak and incompetent now, I am looking forward to finding out her real characteristic hiding under her innocent surface. From my perspective, this passage may imply the power femme fatale \u2013 here refers to Brigid O\u2019Shaughnessy – exerts over the hero – Samuel Spade – in future content.\u00a0 \u201ca mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous and deadly situations\u201d, Brigid will \u201ctry to achieve her hidden purpose by using feminine wiles such as beauty, charm and sexual allure.\u201d(Wikipedia entry: femme fatale )<\/p>\n
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What I found interesting in this book is Chapter four, page 35, the description of conversation between Samuel Spade and Brigid O\u2019Shaughnessy. \u201cI haven\u2019t lived a good life,\u201d she cried. \u201cI\u2019ve been bad \u2013 worse than you could know \u2013 but I\u2019m not all bad. Look at me, Mr.Spade. You know I\u2019m not all bad, … Continue reading Reaction Paper#1<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1774,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fysdetective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fysdetective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fysdetective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fysdetective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1774"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fysdetective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fysdetective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fysdetective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fysdetective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fysdetective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}