Typology and Meaning of Violence in Dashiell Hammett’s <I>RED HARVEST</I> and in Chester Himes’s <I>THE BLIND MAN WITH A PISTOL</I>

Harouna BA

doi:doi:10.11648/j.ellc.20220704.13

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Typology and Meaning of Violence in Dashiell Hammett’s RED HARVEST and in Chester Himes’s THE BLIND MAN WITH A PISTOL

Harouna BA

Published in English Language, Literature & Culture (Volume 7, Issue 4)

Received: 12 November 2022 Accepted: 2 December 2022 Published: 15 December 2022

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Abstract

The hardboiled novel, a narrative that represents the investigation of crimes and its horror in the early twentieth century, enriched American literature with a new mode of representation and expression. Though violence is the cornerstone in American crime fiction, it should not prevent us from analyzing what does it really stand for in these novels. The private eyes and the police detectives, by investigating crimes committed by the criminals, inquire the same time about the societal deeds such the profound motives of the murders and the criminals. So, the objective of this article is to analyze the types of violence depicted in Dashiell Hammett’s and Chester Himes’s hardboiled novels by linking them to the real context of their occurrence. It reveals that violence is not forcefully noticeable at firsthand view and that further investigation is need to thoroughly apprehend that it is in keep with the reality of American culture of violence. In doing so, the combination of the social approaches to the close readings of these novels allow us to clearly notice that despite the desire by these authors to paint violence, they succeeded in drawing a faithful portrayal of the societal deeds (mischief) of the American period of the thirties by showing that the culprit is not the criminals that pervade these novels but the society.

Published in	English Language, Literature & Culture (Volume 7, Issue 4)
DOI	10.11648/j.ellc.20220704.13
Page(s)	104-112
Creative Commons	This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright	Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Violence, Hardboiled, Brutalities, Crimes, Societal, Psychology, Dashiell Hammett, Chester Himes

References

[1]	Hammett, D., (1929) Red Harvest, New York, Alfred A. Knopf Inc.
[2]	Hammett, D., (1931), The Glass Key, New York, Penguin Books.
[3]	Himes, C., (1969) Blind Man with a Pistol, New York, Vintage Books.
[4]	Himes, C., (1957) A Rage in Harlem, New York, Vintage Books.
[5]	Scaggs, J.(2005) Crime Fiction. London and New York: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group.
[6]	Cawelti, J. G., (Mar., 1975), “Myths of Violence in American Popular Culture”, Reviewed work(s), Critical Inquiry, Vol. 1, No. 3 pp. 521-541 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1342829. Accessed: 13/03/2013 18:11, p. 524.
[7]	Himes, C., (1945) If he Hollers Let Him Go. Thunders Mouth Press, N. Y., 1945.
[8]	Meryem, A., (2012) “The cultural logic of racism in Richard Wright’s Native Son” African Journal of History and Culture Vol. 3 (9), pp. 135 Accessed online in 13th May, 13:32, at http://www.academicjournals.org/AJHC
[9]	Chandler, Raymond., (1952 ) “The Simple Art of Murder,” Saturday Review of Literature, 1944; reprinted as The Simple Art of Murder, New York: Pocket Books. 1988.
[10]	Harrison S. J., (2001) Texts, Ideas and The Classic, Scholarship, Theory and Classics Literature, Oxford U. P. New York.
[11]	Marc A. and Regine R., La sociologie de la littérature: un historique suivi d’une Bibliographie de la sociocritique & de la sociologie de la littérature par Marc Angenot & Janusz Przychodzen. Discours social / Social Discourse Nouvelle série / New Series Volume IX (2002). p. 3 « la mort comme objet de consommation » p. 15.
[12]	Gadhire, S. S., International Journal on Studies in English Language and Literature (IJSELL) Volume 10, Issue 9, September 2022, PP 1-5 ISSN 2347-3126 (Print) & ISSN 2347-3134 (Online) https://doi.org/10.20431/2347-3134.1009001 www.arcjournals.org. accessed 06 Dec. 2022 at 17:13
[13]	Horsley, L. (2005) Twentieth Century of Crime Fiction, Oxford University Press, Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York.
[14]	Dos Santos, J. V. T., (2019) “Violence in Literature: The romance of violence in Latin America”, Journal of the Brazilian Sociological Society Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Sociologia ISSN 2447-2670 SiD, Porto Alegre, v. 5, n. 2, p. 73-91, July-Dec. 2019 https://doi.org/10.20336/sid.v5i2.116.
[15]	López GONZÁLEZ, J. Á., (2003), “DREAMS, PARABLES AND HALLUCINATIONS: THE METAPHORICAL INTERLUDES IN DASHIELL HAMMETT'S NOVELS”, Revista de Estudios Norteamericarícanos, n. º 9 pp. 65-80.

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APA Style

Harouna BA. (2022). Typology and Meaning of Violence in Dashiell Hammett’s RED HARVEST and in Chester Himes’s THE BLIND MAN WITH A PISTOL. English Language, Literature & Culture, 7(4), 104-112. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20220704.13

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Harouna BA. Typology and Meaning of Violence in Dashiell Hammett’s RED HARVEST and in Chester Himes’s THE BLIND MAN WITH A PISTOL. Engl. Lang. Lit. Cult. 2022, 7(4), 104-112. doi: 10.11648/j.ellc.20220704.13

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AMA Style

Harouna BA. Typology and Meaning of Violence in Dashiell Hammett’s RED HARVEST and in Chester Himes’s THE BLIND MAN WITH A PISTOL. Engl Lang Lit Cult. 2022;7(4):104-112. doi: 10.11648/j.ellc.20220704.13

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@article{10.11648/j.ellc.20220704.13,
  author = {Harouna BA},
  title = {Typology and Meaning of Violence in Dashiell Hammett’s RED HARVEST and in Chester Himes’s THE BLIND MAN WITH A PISTOL},
  journal = {English Language, Literature & Culture},
  volume = {7},
  number = {4},
  pages = {104-112},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ellc.20220704.13},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20220704.13},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ellc.20220704.13},
  abstract = {The hardboiled novel, a narrative that represents the investigation of crimes and its horror in the early twentieth century, enriched American literature with a new mode of representation and expression. Though violence is the cornerstone in American crime fiction, it should not prevent us from analyzing what does it really stand for in these novels. The private eyes and the police detectives, by investigating crimes committed by the criminals, inquire the same time about the societal deeds such the profound motives of the murders and the criminals. So, the objective of this article is to analyze the types of violence depicted in Dashiell Hammett’s and Chester Himes’s hardboiled novels by linking them to the real context of their occurrence. It reveals that violence is not forcefully noticeable at firsthand view and that further investigation is need to thoroughly apprehend that it is in keep with the reality of American culture of violence. In doing so, the combination of the social approaches to the close readings of these novels allow us to clearly notice that despite the desire by these authors to paint violence, they succeeded in drawing a faithful portrayal of the societal deeds (mischief) of the American period of the thirties by showing that the culprit is not the criminals that pervade these novels but the society.},
 year = {2022}
}

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T1  - Typology and Meaning of Violence in Dashiell Hammett’s RED HARVEST and in Chester Himes’s THE BLIND MAN WITH A PISTOL
AU  - Harouna BA
Y1  - 2022/12/15
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Author Information

Harouna BA

English Department, Arts, Cultures et Civilisations Doctoral School (ARCIV), Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar, Senegal

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APA Style

Harouna BA. (2022). Typology and Meaning of Violence in Dashiell Hammett’s RED HARVEST and in Chester Himes’s THE BLIND MAN WITH A PISTOL. English Language, Literature & Culture, 7(4), 104-112. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20220704.13

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ACS Style

Harouna BA. Typology and Meaning of Violence in Dashiell Hammett’s RED HARVEST and in Chester Himes’s THE BLIND MAN WITH A PISTOL. Engl. Lang. Lit. Cult. 2022, 7(4), 104-112. doi: 10.11648/j.ellc.20220704.13

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AMA Style

Harouna BA. Typology and Meaning of Violence in Dashiell Hammett’s RED HARVEST and in Chester Himes’s THE BLIND MAN WITH A PISTOL. Engl Lang Lit Cult. 2022;7(4):104-112. doi: 10.11648/j.ellc.20220704.13

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@article{10.11648/j.ellc.20220704.13,
  author = {Harouna BA},
  title = {Typology and Meaning of Violence in Dashiell Hammett’s RED HARVEST and in Chester Himes’s THE BLIND MAN WITH A PISTOL},
  journal = {English Language, Literature & Culture},
  volume = {7},
  number = {4},
  pages = {104-112},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ellc.20220704.13},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20220704.13},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ellc.20220704.13},
  abstract = {The hardboiled novel, a narrative that represents the investigation of crimes and its horror in the early twentieth century, enriched American literature with a new mode of representation and expression. Though violence is the cornerstone in American crime fiction, it should not prevent us from analyzing what does it really stand for in these novels. The private eyes and the police detectives, by investigating crimes committed by the criminals, inquire the same time about the societal deeds such the profound motives of the murders and the criminals. So, the objective of this article is to analyze the types of violence depicted in Dashiell Hammett’s and Chester Himes’s hardboiled novels by linking them to the real context of their occurrence. It reveals that violence is not forcefully noticeable at firsthand view and that further investigation is need to thoroughly apprehend that it is in keep with the reality of American culture of violence. In doing so, the combination of the social approaches to the close readings of these novels allow us to clearly notice that despite the desire by these authors to paint violence, they succeeded in drawing a faithful portrayal of the societal deeds (mischief) of the American period of the thirties by showing that the culprit is not the criminals that pervade these novels but the society.},
 year = {2022}
}

Copy | Download

TY  - JOUR
T1  - Typology and Meaning of Violence in Dashiell Hammett’s RED HARVEST and in Chester Himes’s THE BLIND MAN WITH A PISTOL
AU  - Harouna BA
Y1  - 2022/12/15
PY  - 2022
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20220704.13
DO  - 10.11648/j.ellc.20220704.13
T2  - English Language, Literature & Culture
JF  - English Language, Literature & Culture
JO  - English Language, Literature & Culture
SP  - 104
EP  - 112
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2575-2413
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ellc.20220704.13
AB  - The hardboiled novel, a narrative that represents the investigation of crimes and its horror in the early twentieth century, enriched American literature with a new mode of representation and expression. Though violence is the cornerstone in American crime fiction, it should not prevent us from analyzing what does it really stand for in these novels. The private eyes and the police detectives, by investigating crimes committed by the criminals, inquire the same time about the societal deeds such the profound motives of the murders and the criminals. So, the objective of this article is to analyze the types of violence depicted in Dashiell Hammett’s and Chester Himes’s hardboiled novels by linking them to the real context of their occurrence. It reveals that violence is not forcefully noticeable at firsthand view and that further investigation is need to thoroughly apprehend that it is in keep with the reality of American culture of violence. In doing so, the combination of the social approaches to the close readings of these novels allow us to clearly notice that despite the desire by these authors to paint violence, they succeeded in drawing a faithful portrayal of the societal deeds (mischief) of the American period of the thirties by showing that the culprit is not the criminals that pervade these novels but the society.
VL  - 7
IS  - 4
ER  -

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