parallels.

Bri Fowle
After reading our assigned chapters for tonight, I thought about how similar the basic storyline is in both Brick and The Big Sleep. It makes me wonder whether the basic storyline of the hardboiled detective fiction/noir genres are all the same baseline. There is this tough, manly, unafraid man that has a mystery that falls into his lap one way or another, and he sets out to solve this mystery, whatever it takes. He meets many other people along the way, and he is always able to get what he wants from them. The men are always very masculine and he is not afraid of whatever they happen to put up as a fight against him. For Brendan, he was not afraid of physical violence and thus earned the respect of the people who were throwing the punches. He was very resilient and wouldn’t stop until he got what he wanted from someone. For Marlowe, he has had a gun pointed in his face and doesn’t even flinch, and by doing that he throws off his opponent somewhat and he uses that to his advantage. The women in the stories are usually very naïve-seeming and coy, but in the end they seem to be very manipulative and not nearly as unintelligent as they seem. Another parallel that I see in the stories is that some of the women are always trying to distract the detective with their sex appeal to try and gain their trust, and both detectives are not interested or blow them off. In Brick, you see this partially with Kara, but mostly with Laura. In Marlowe’s case, both Vivian and Carmen are trying to throw themselves on him, but he seems to be completely uninterested.