Masculinity In The Maltese Falcon

She hardly ever utters a sentence that’s 100% true. Whether it be lying about the value of the statuette, Thursby’s loyalty, or her history, she can easily manipulate most listeners and make them believe she needs to be protected or assisted. Spade is one of the few who catches her frequent lies. Although she says “so tired of it all, of [herself], of lying and thinking up lies, and of not knowing what is a lie and what is the truth,” she continues to mislead people in order to get her to the falcon (Hammett, 48).

It leads one to go against their morals and act upon their "need" for wealth. The characters are all seeking the Maltese Falcon, a gold-encrusted Falcon that is coated with a black lead surface. Many believe this falcon possesses a large sum of money, and people are willing to go to any extent to get their treasure. In this case, the characters are so driven by greed that they deceive one another, commit murder, and betray one’s loyalty. In the novel, The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett, the motif of

He was able to outsmart everyone, but at the cost of his being alone. He may have won, but he won Iva, a character symbol of loneliness. Spade may not be greedy but he is very selfish. He feels that he is a professional and that causes him to do things that people normally wouldn’t do. There is irony in the way that Spade thinks about himself.

In the memoir, The Prince of Los Cocuyos, the performance of masculinity of the people is illuminated. This is seen with most of the men conforming to the gendered expectations of a man, some confidently defying and conforming at the same time, and Riqui not daring to disturb the universe, but having a hard time conforming to all the expectations. As a child when it was just his grandmother giving him a hard time about acting and looking like a man, Riqui defied many of the gendered expectations. However, when these expectations started coming from friends then he started to attempt to act like he was expected. Riqui defies gendered expectations of a boy through his interest in the girly things like Cinderella, dolls and makeovers; however,

A result of the dangerous search for the falcon, a girl named Brigid O’Shaunessy went to detective Sam Spade for help. The night after their first meeting, Spade sends his partner Miles Archer to shadow a man named Thursby who has dangerous relations with Brigid, and, that night, both Thursby and Archer were found dead. Spade soon gets involved in Brigid’s case. This is to protect her from the other pursuers of and help find the figurine. Spade involves himself not for the primary purpose of the case, but to find out who Archer’s murderer is.

The Creed by Ryan Coogler is a movie about a person who want to find his memories through the death of his father. His name is Donnie. The film is mostly a story of Donnie on the way become a champion of World Heavyweight by the support of Rocky; who was his father friend and rival. Ryan created a Donnie character who is a strongest boy with wonderful dream and overcome challenges. However, it relates to a speech on Tedtalk by McKelley about “Unmasking Masculinity”.

There were many socially relevant characters in the movie The Maltese Falcon including Mr. Gutman the economically corrupt man, Spade the rather elusive detective, and Brigid O'Shaughnessy the representation of social corruption. To many the secretive Spade might have been the most captivating but his significance was strongly altered because of the mistress Brigid O’Shaughnessy (aka Miss Wonderly) the femme fatale. Her deceptive yet truthful roleplay with a multitude of men made the story more twisting. At first the police were hunting down Spade but she was ultimately the one to end up in prison.

In “To Be a Man,” Julie Burrell claims that there are two types of masculinity present in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun: Mama’s version of masculinity that’s rooted from “a life-affirming Black tradition” and Walter’s version of masculinity that’s dependent on earning money for the family. (3). Initially, in Hansberry’s play, Walter was solely focused on acquiring power through wealth; however, with the decision he made to move into the white neighborhood in the end, he had grew out of his mindset of having a “capitalist masculinity.” Burrell stated that “Walter's newfound manhood...allows him to support the dreams of the women in the household against the obstacles of racist and sexist oppression"

The ability to overcome obstacles is crucial for success as a detective, such as Spade. He proves this mental strength after telling Brigid that he turned her into the police and she tried to guilt trip him, which prompts him to respond with, “I won’t play the sap for you” (Hammett 215). The use of allusion to describe how Spade feels like Brigid is trying to manipulate him shows us that this is a battle that Spade is fighting against mentally. Brigid is using her manipulation to try to reverse the decision of turning her in, yet Spade prevails. This is exactly what Chandler describes as the ideal hero, which is a person who’s able to succeed in losing situations such as this scene in the

In Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, the character Atticus Finch is different from the other men of Macomb in many ways. One major difference is him displaying positive qualities not seen in Macomb's other men. It can be argued that Atticus represents a new concept of masculinity because of his personal qualities. There two are qualities that strongly support this argument; Atticus is respectful to all people and he does not do the daily tasks that the other men do, although some people argue that his behavior is only because he is under pressure to set an example for his kids. Atticus one of the few respectful characters in To Kill A Mockingbird which sets him apart from the other Maycomb men.

So what happens in this story? The story is Brigid (going under the name as “Ms. Wonderly”) visits the private investigator’s office of Miles Archer and the main protagonist of the story, Sam Spade. She attempts to hire Spade and Archer to

Symons calls Spade a counterfeit hero due to the fact he does not stay within the confines of the law. Yet, while all are basing their actions after codes that are supposedly leading to happiness, Spade's is the only one that takes the law into account even if, as Kelly acknowledges, he is just breaking the law to the extent of which the law will allow him. Spade's code is based on justice but not the law as he does not adhere to the law when he is going about in his investigations for he is more concerned with catching the culprit and bringing them to justice than being limited by the law. He could have washed his hands of the issue brought up by the Falcon, but he must put on this guise for he knows that the law may not serve justice for he knows that without him going around the law and cutting to conclusions such as Brigid's murder of Miles that the regular police force, the one stuck in the confines of the law, would never have been able to catch Miles' killer, but instead would have simply arrested him for the affair he had been involved with with Iva

Hammett quotes Spade as, “Spade's jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth. His nostrils curved back to make another, smaller, v. His yellow-grey eyes were horizontal. The v motif was picked up again by thickish brows rising outward from twin creases above a hooked nose, and his pale brown hair grew down from high flat temples in a point on his forehead. He looked rather pleasantly like a blond satan.” (Hammett 1) Hammett’s ambiguous description of Spade is confusing for audiences and lackluster; accordingly, the film skips over these ambiguous character descriptions and illuminates them within the dialogue and morals of the characters.

In Tim O’brien’s book, The Things They Carried, we see the detrimental causes and effects of the enforced stereotype of male masculinity. Tim uses many factors including the setting, characters, symbolism and other components like these to conveys his feelings and emotions. Many of those feelings and emotions derive from his personal experience in the war. The Things They Carried accurately shows what it is to struggle with the stereotypical image of a man in how it presents itself in everyday life along with its adverse and restricting effects.

Obtaining and defending one's honor defines a person's life the community conveyed in Gabriel García Marquez’s novela Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Honor is an intangible prize that is synonymous with worship and good reputation. In the small town that this chronicle takes place in is very divided through gender. For a woman to be respected highly and maintain her honor she must be pure and practice chastity before marriage. Opposed to that, for a man to be considered with honor, he perform hyper-masculinity in everything that he does, and treat everyone with this pugnacious attitude.