The Maltese Falcon Analysis

*San Francisco

*San Francisco. California port city in which the novel is set. San Francisco is depicted as a dark and corrupt place, one in which protagonist and unsentimental private detective Sam Spade says that most things in San Francisco “can be bought or taken.” To emphasize the connection between the characters, particularly Spade, and the corrupt city setting, Spade refers to San Francisco as his “burg.” The fact that most of the story’s action occurs at night further emphasizes the dark side of society and human nature.

Spade’s apartment

Spade’s apartment. Home of Sam Spade on San Francisco’s Post Street, a well-appointed bachelor’s apartment with a sitting room, a kitchen, a bathroom, a bedroom, and a separate entry foyer. Many significant scenes are set in the apartment. For example, Spade is there when he learns of his partner’s death through a late-night phone call and is later visited there by the police.

Spade appears to be comfortable and at ease when he is in his apartment, but it cannot be considered a completely safe haven. The police repeatedly appear there to harass him, and in one scene, a fight breaks out there between Brigid O’Shaughnessy and Joel Cairo. It is also the apartment in which Spade turns in Brigid, the woman he says he loves, to the police.

Spade’s office

Spade’s office. Private detective office on San...

Prohibition and Gangsters
Sale of alcohol had been illegal in the United States since 1920, when the 18th Amendment was ratified...

Antihero
While a traditional hero might be counted on to do the right thing for the common good, the protagonist of The...

In The Maltese Falcon, Hammett shifts locale from Red Harvest's (1929) small Western mining town to the cosmopolitan city of...

1930: It is considered acceptable and even friendly for an employer like Sam Spade to address an employee like Effie Perine with terms...

Research the development of detective work from the 1930s through today. How do the methods of a detective like Sam Spade relate to the...

The Maltese Falcon is considered by most critics to be Hammett's best detective novel, although some literary experts prefer The...

Hammett's reputation as the grand master of the modern American detective novel is based on a creative period of no more than eleven years...

Many of Hammett's works were adapted as radio plays in the 1930s and 1940s; particularly popular were the series based on The Glass...

The first screen adaptation of The Maltese Falcon was the film Dangerous Female (1931). It was directed by Roy Del Ruth and...

Sources
Cuppy, Will, “Mystery and Adventure,” in New York Herald Tribune, February 23, 1930, p. 17.

Curtis, William, “Some Recent Books,” in Town & Country, February 15, 1930.

“Judging the Books,” in Judge, March 1, 1930.

MacDonald, Ross, Self-Portrait: Ceaselessly into the Past, Capra Press, 1981, p. 112.

Further Reading
Gregory, Sinda, Private Investigations: The Novels of Dashiell Hammett, Southern Illinois University Press, 1985. Coming from outside of the small, specific world of detective fiction, Gregory examines Hammett’s novels with the same critical eye that one might apply to the works of...