Reaction Paper #2: Making a claim about The Maltese Falcon<\/p>\n
Brigid O\u2019Shaughessy is a mysterious actress on the stage of Sam Spade. As such, she is apt at disguising herself and her intentions. When the reader is first introduced to her as Ms. Wonderly, she was a woman desperately in search of \u00a0her sister in fear of her safety being compromised. As we later find out, this was all a fluke in an attempt to get Spade to help her in another situation. However, upon closer examination in the way that O\u2019Shaughessy has requested this deed, it foreshadows the mysterious and manipulative nature of her character.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ms. Wonderly walks into Spade\u2019s office asking for someone to be tailed for the sake of her sister. However, she does not get straight to the point. Instead, she says that because their mother and father are about to return home, she hopes that her sister will be there, all the while referring to her sister simply as \u201cher.\u201d This does not accurately describe the situation a sister would be in if her dear sibling was in danger. We then turn to the fact that she showed no signs of close bond with this said \u201csister\u201d that she had. However, from her dialogue, we can gather that Ms. Wonderly simply wants the sister to be within her sight.<\/p>\n
Fast forward to the two murders that take place and again we see this shadowy and manipulative side of her as she plays the pity card against Spade but ultimately fails. On page 35 when Spade asks for more information on the situation, O\u2019Shaughessy breaks down and tries to get Spade to help her once more. She starts off with \u201c I haven\u2019t live a good life\u201d and immediately bombards Spade with emotional rhetorical questions: \u201cYou know that I\u2019m not all bad, don\u2019t you? You can see that, can\u2019t you? Then can\u2019t you trust me a little? Oh, I\u2019m so alone and afraid, and I\u2019ve got nobody to help me if you won\u2019t help me.\u201d This then leads into forceful request laced with pity: \u201cHelp me because I need help so badly, and because if \u00a0you don\u2019t where will I find anyone who can, no matter how willing? Help me… Be generous, Mr. Spade. You can help me. Help me.\u201d The constant reinforcement of her plead only loses its effect and gains in pressure as a way to corner Spade into helping O\u2019Shaughnessy despite her unwillingness to spill the beans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reaction Paper #2: Making a claim about The Maltese Falcon Brigid O\u2019Shaughessy is a mysterious actress on the stage of Sam Spade. As such, she is apt at disguising herself and her intentions. When the reader is first introduced to her as Ms. Wonderly, she was a woman desperately in search of \u00a0her sister in … Continue reading Liar Liar Pants on Fire<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1771,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fysdetective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346","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\/1771"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fysdetective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fysdetective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fysdetective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fysdetective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/fysdetective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}