Philip Marlowe, Cowboy

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I got excited after finishing The Big Sleep, and decided to look up hard-boiled detective fiction in the library's "Academic Search Complete" database. There, I learned that some critics have compared characters like Marlowe to the cowboys or frontiersmen of western fiction. The detectives are described as "carving civilization out of the wilderness," even if they contend with an urban landscape instead of a natural one -- "a world in which [the detective] is constantly under siege." Like a cowboy, the hard-boiled detective is a loner who solves problems with action and adventuring.


Does this comparison work for The Big Sleep? Is Marlowe like a frontiersman or the hero of a Western? How might Chandler be creating a wilderness landscape for his detective?


Also: Did you think there was an awful lot of talk about thumbs and fingers and teeth in The Big Sleep? You're not alone... 


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