First post

I can tell when the book was written by the way Chandler refers to women. The male characters are rude, brash, and even physically violent with the female characters in The Big Sleep. For instance, in chapter 7, Marlowe's second run in with Carmen Sternwood, "I slapped her face. She blinked and stopped chuckling. I slapped her again...I slapped her around a little more. She didn't mind the slaps." In todays society, no matter how dim witted the woman is, it would be an outrage to slap a female. The theme of male dominance is present throughout the book. When Marlowe met Vivian for the first time he mostly talked about how great her legs looked. Then in chapter 14 when Agnes and Marlowe got into a scuffle over the gun, Marlowe "cracked her on the head with the gun" and again "hit Agnes on the head with less delicacy than before". The women are nothing more than the trouble makers of the novel: the Sternwood sisters and Agnes all being a negative aspect to Marlowe's case. The time period in which the book was written probably has a lot to do with why women are portrayed this way.