The Big Sleep

Several characters struggle with the novel’s morally ambiguous situations. General Sternwood wants to protect his family’s reputation, but he also wants to learn whether his daughter’s misbehavior has gone too far. Vivian tries to keep her ill sister’s name out of the papers, but this means covering up a murder. Marlowe protects his client, killing and lying to get the job done. No characters are coded as purely good or bad; good people do bad things, while bad people sometimes do good—a moral tangle that lies at the heart of the novel’s world.

Several of the Sternwoods have benign motives: General Sternwood tries to correct the spoiled path that his daughters are on, Vivian tries desperately to protect her sister Carmen, whom she deeply loves, and Carmen’s homicidal tendencies seem to be the result of a neurological illness. However, the resources at their disposal mean that the Sternwoods pursue their goals with the impunity and shortcuts that wealth bestows. Sternwood hires Marlowe to clean up Carmen’s blackmail and Vivian’s gambling debts; his standing in the power structure of LA means that the police are willing to bend over backward to keep the family away from negative press attention. Similarly, Vivian cares for Carmen by hiding her murder of Regan, transferring her huge inheritance to Eddie Mars, the man who got rid of Regan’s body. Carmen is only vaguely aware of her behavior; an epileptic seizure causes her to forget that she killed Regan. However, she senses that the seizure probably followed something terrible, reacting “with a sudden sick speculation and beg[inning] to moan” (164). The motives and reasons underlying the Sternwoods’ actions are sympathetic, but their behavior is underhanded and criminal.

To navigate the seamy underworld of crime, the would-be upstanding detective Marlowe lies, manipulates, threatens, and assaults anyone who stands in his way. Although he is shown resisting his sexual impulses—shorthand for his selfless code of ethics—Marlowe cannot help but sink to the level of those he works for. Hired by the Sternwoods, he ultimately helps them cover up their crimes and does their dirty work. Marlowe believes himself to be above the law. A rogue sense of justice compels him to dig deeper into Regan’s disappearance without being asked, which brings him into conflict with Eddie Mars’s deadly associate, Lash Canino, whom Marlowe kills in a shootout. Had he ignored Regan’s disappearance, a mystery outside his purview, he wouldn’t have resorted to the vigilante justice that gets him in trouble with the authorities, but he also wouldn’t have solved Regan’s murder. Marlowe’s methods are a gray area—he gets results but at a cost.

The novel’s criminals are equally morally ambiguous. Both of the novel’s early murders are the result of misplaced vengeance. Owen Taylor kills Geiger for luring his beloved Carmen into a blackmail trap; his cause is just, but he is nevertheless a murderer. Likewise, Carol Lundgren shoots Brody to avenge the murder of Lundgren’s partner Geiger; Brody is the wrong man, but Lundgren kills only in righteous anger. Other criminals show surprising streaks of loyalty: Harry Jones, a small-time hustler, dies protecting Agnes Lozelle’s whereabouts so that she can escape the brutal hitman Canino. Similarly, while Mona Mars enables Marlowe’s escape when he explains that she is in danger from Canino, she remains completely loyal to Mars—her lips are ice cold when she kisses Marlowe.

The police work to keep criminals out of the city, yet corruption lurks deep within their own ranks. In dealing with the misdeeds of wealthy LA society, they are self-serving and hypocritical—coming down hard on small-time criminals while allowing the richest miscreants to go free. Both DA Wilde and Chief Geiger admit with wry weariness that they countenance institutionalized wrongdoing: They bend or break the rules to catch perpetrators, protect favored citizens, and line their own pockets.