Chandler’s first novel, “The Big Sleep”, introduces the detective and narrator Philip Marlowe. Though Marlowe had prototypes in the hard-boiled sleuths of the short stories, he now appears as a protagonist of unmistakable originality while also bearings an ironic resemblance to the stereopticon private eye. As many critics have recognized, Marlowe’s flinty persona his cynical outlook, bitter wit, and outlaw self-image is a think disguise for the frustrated ideals and sentimentalism of one of the most romantic character in American literature. (Hall) Chandler is often likened to the knights of medieval romance. “Farewell, My Lovely, Chandler’s second and some say his best novel, established him as a major detective writer. The identifying characteristics of his work are now apparent, primarily his use of a central mystery revealed by a story’s characters rather than the plot complications of traditional whodunits. (Hall)…show more content… (MacDonald) Since the hard-boiled genre is commonly perceived to be fast-paced or tough, sentence structure is an obvious target for analysis. Chandler’s style can be understood by concentrating on sentence length, sentence and clause types, and verbs. (MacDonald) Chandler’s sentence length is short by a number of typical academic prose tends to average around 25 words per sentence and may extend well past that. (MacDonald) Style is often mistakenly equated with refinement and the language of hard-boiled fiction with a linguistic slumming of sorts in that it offers language spoken by the uneducated classes.
