Dashiell Hammett: biography and creativity

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

At the beginning of the 20th century, in the 1920s, such a genre as noir was formed in popular American literature. This name comes from the French word noir - "black", which perfectly characterizes this direction.

Distinguishing features of noir

Previously, there was already a similar genre of hard-boiled fiction, which can be translated as a "hard boiled" crime novel. Such works have a tense, action-filled plot and a special style of narration - rough and sharp.

But in hard-boiled fiction novels, the protagonist is usually a stereotypically positive character - it can be a journalist or a detective investigating a case. Noir works focus on the criminal himself, the suspect, or, much less frequently, the victim of the crime.

Noir was considered a rather mediocre and low genre due to the abundance of various slang, overly cruel realism and cynicism.

One of the founders of the black novel is the American writer and screenwriter Samuel Dashiell Hammett.

Biography

Dashiell Hammett was born on May 27, 1894 in St. Mary's County in the US state of Maryland, but childhood is the futureThe writer took place in B altimore and Philadelphia. He served in the army and fought for a time in World War I, but later contracted tuberculosis, which forced Dashiell Hammett to leave the front. After the end of the war, Hammett married, but the marriage soon fell apart.

The work had a great influence on his work. Between 1915 and 1921, Dashiell Hammett was a private detective for the Pinkerton agency. Based on the experience gained during the investigations, the writer created his works. Thanks to this, they turned out to be realistic, reliable and correct in terms of logic.

In the 1950s, the writer was arrested as a political prisoner. Having lived for 67 years, Dashiell Hammett died in a New York hospital on January 10, 1967. In the last years of his life, he was deeply depressed, suffering from alcoholism and the effects of tuberculosis, which seriously undermined his he alth. Despite fame and popularity, the writer died alone and in poverty.

Creativity

For the first time, under the name of Peter Collinson, a story was published that tells about the nameless detective of the Continental detective agency, - the author himself and the Pinkerton agency became the prototypes of the character and his place of work.

In the future, about two dozen more stories were written about this hero and his investigation. A few years later, the stories were combined and published as the Danes Curse and Blood Harvest novels.

The most popular novel that brought fame to Dashiell Hammett is The M altese Falcon,the main character of which is also an operative. This time, the author gave the character the name Sam Spade. The character has also appeared in Hammett's other books - A Man Called Spade, There Have Been Too Many, and You Can Only Hang Once.

Dashiell Hammett used innovative literary devices, many of which later became classic clichés. Sam Spade's personality has also served as the basis upon which other writers have created their characters. For example, Raymond Chandler's character Philip Marlowe is in many ways similar to the detective from The M altese Falcon.

Sam Spade is energetic and aggressive, like all the characters in Hammett's works, but at the same time his image is not caricatured or exaggerated. The character is carefully worked out by the writer to the smallest detail, right down to the manner of speaking.

Criticism and impact on American culture

After the publication of The M altese Falcon, which was later named "The Best American Detective of All Time", the writer received recognition from critics and readers. He has been compared to Ernest Hemingway. The accuracy of style, conciseness and plausibility of the events described were noted. Dashiell Hammett knew how to create intrigue and plot the right way.