Suggested topics: theme(s) and structure; importance of the text within the context of the author’s work and time; subject of the enunciation; point of view and effect upon the reader/addressee; rhetoric and linguistic devices and language tropes (descriptive or lyric manner, figures of speech, symbolism, innovation / surprising markers, collocations, or pattern traces within the author’s work); intertextuality with texts studied in this class or others.
"She came into the room and into the cicle of light from the tall lamp; a girl in her early twenties, slender and lithe, and dressed for the street, except that she carried her hat in one hand. A white face beneath a bobbed mass of flame-colored hair. Smoke-gray eyes that were set too far apart for trustworthiness — though not for beauty — laughed at me; and her red mouth laughed at me, exposing the edges of little sharp animal-teeth. She was as beautiful as the devil, and twice as dangerous.
She laughed at me — a fat man, all trussed up with red plush rope, and with the corner of a green cushion in my mouth — and she turned to the ugly man. "What do you want?"
He spoke in an undertone, with a furtive glance at the ceiling, above which soft steps still padded back and forth.
"What say we shake him?"
Her smoke-gray eyes lost their merriment and became calculating.
"There's a hundred thousand he's holding - a third of it's mine. You don't think I'm going to take a Mickey Finn on that, do you?"
The description of Elvira is somewhat similar to that of Mrs. Quarre, not only in aspects mentioned but also in the order these aspects are mentioned:
ResponderEliminar-"girl in her early twenties, slender and lithe"
"a very fragile old woman" (page 84)
-"except that she carried her hat in one hand"
"with a piece of gray knitting in one hand" (page 84)
-"Smoke-gray eyes that were set too far apart for trustworthiness — though ot for beauty — laughed at me"
"and faded eyes that twinkled pleasantly behind goldrimmed spectacles." (page 84)
The two women are, at first, polar opposites of each other; Mrs. Quarre seems as innocent, sexless and benevolent as Elvira seems mischevious, alluring and wicked.
The physical aspect of Elvira also directly reflects the comparison made between her and the figure of the devil - she has red hair and smoke-gray eyes (fire and smoke), and a red mouth with little sharp animal-teeth.
The repetition of the words "laughed at me" in three different instances is used by the author to emphasize the humiliation felt by the narrator as a "fat man, all trussed up with red plush rope" before a beautiful, sensual girl. This is a good example of this narrator's unreliability, because it tells us that his description of her appearance and attitudes is most likely influenced by how intimidated he is by this femme fatale.
There are also two instances of slang - "we shake him" and "take a Mickey Finn on that" - which is characteristic of the hardboiled style prominent in the detective fiction of this time.
O presente excerto do texto de Dashiel Hammett retrata o estereótipo da femme fatale nos policiais americanos, personificado na personagem de Elvira. Através de uma linguagem directa e descritiva, e com o recurso a escassos e concisos adjectivos - característica do género hard boiled fiction - o autor enumera algumas das características da figura feminina: “a girl in her early twenties”, “slender and lithe”, “A white face beneath a bobbed mass of flame-colored hair”, “Smoke-gray eyes”, “red month”, “little sharp animal teeth”. A descrição desta bela, ousada e exuberante personagem confere ao leitor a ideia que a mulher encarna em si a figura do demónio, um símbolo ligado ao pecado e ao perigo eminente (“She was as beautiful as the devil, and twice as dangerous”).
ResponderEliminarA entrada da personagem em cena é um tanto exuberante e dramática – note-se que a acção passa-se num ambiente escuro e a personagem surge num foco de luz proveniente de uma lâmpada. Este cenário serve para reforçar o poder que a femme fatale exerce sobre um detective gordo e amarrado com uma corda vermelha (“a fat man, all trussed up with red plush rope”), que se sente humilhado perante uma figura tão forte como Elvira, que faz troça dele - “She laughed at me”. Em suma, este pequeno excerto demonstra qual é o papel da femme fatale nos policiais americanos, e como é que esta figura se relaciona com o herói da trama.
O excerto do conto policial «The House in Turk Street», de Dashiell Hammett», apresenta o momento em que surge uma nova personagem, Elvira, o terceiro elemento do trio de assaltantes que prendem o narrador, o detective, à cadeira, na casa de um casal de idosos, Mr. e Mrs. Quarre.
ResponderEliminarTratando-se de um conto policial, contém várias marcas características desse tipo de texto. O autor foi, ele próprio, detective privado e um importante escritor nesta área. O uso da primeira pessoa, o narrador-presente, é, talvez, o aspecto mais característico. É um tipo de escrita com as suas limitações porque nunca se põe nos pensamentos, ideias e cabeças das outras personagens - toda a acção assenta na descrição feita pelo narrador e pela sua visão (sempre limitada pelo que vê e pelo que pensa) dos acontecimentos.
Por isso, a linguagem tem de ser muito descritiva. O surgimento desta nova personagem, de quem só conhecíamos a voz, é acompanhada por várias descrições sobre a sua idade, vestuário, a cara, o cabelo, os olhos. Essa descrição, apesar de física, mistura-se com elementos bem mais subjectivos, como a descrição dos seus olhos não serem de confiança, apesar de serem bonitos. Conclui a descrição com uma hipérbole: «She was beautiful as the devil, and twice as dangerous.»
Sobre Elvira, repete ainda três vezes «[she] laughed at me», criando uma anáfora que termina com uma auto-descrição pouco abonatória. As personagens em cena são uma bela mulher e dois homens feios, criando um efeito de contraste e de antipatia por todas elas, excepto, talvez, o detective, que, apesar de feio, é a personagem que tem alguma moral: está a fazer o seu trabalho e que se encontra numa situação difícil por culpa das outras personagens.
Apesar de ser um texto muito descritivo, a narração não se limita a descrever a acção. Além da descrição da mulher, também utiliza recursos gramáticos e linguísticos para descrever, por exemplo, o tom com que o «ugly man» sugere que ele e a mulher poderiam fugir com o dinheiro: «undertone».
Existe também o uso de calão e de gíria próprios deste tipo de textos e meios: «shake him» (que suponho que queira dizer bater ou enganar o terceiro elemento do grupo) e «take a Mickey Finn» (uma bebida alterada com drogas para incapacitar alguém).
The author starts by describing Elvira as a “beautiful” “devil”. The predominance of the red colour (“flame-colored hair”, “red mouth”) leads us to that image of danger and seduction. Also, the “smoke-gray eyes” indicate this idea of an untrusty, yet tempting figure. The exposure of the “edges of little sharp animal-teeth” appears as a little taste of the forbidden. As the author highlights that “she laughed at me” many times, in different ways, it seems that he is somehow bewitched and kept on thinking on the same laugh over and over again.
ResponderEliminarAfter that, a someway intense scene, caught the attention by means of slang, and illustrates this kind of language chosen that is ordinary throughout this detective fiction.
This excerpt of “The House in Turk Street” focuses mainly on the description of Elvira, although it also contains one of the few instances in which the reader is given a description of what the first hand narrator looks like.
ResponderEliminarThe first paragraph’s opening sentence, in which Elvira appears into the room “into a circle of light”, can have different interpretations. On one hand, it might allude to a scene in an interrogation room- which is fitting, considering this is a detective story-, in which there is usually a circular light in the middle of the room; on the other hand, and considering the reader takes the narrator’s point of view, the description of her entrance is similar to watching a theater play: the narrator- the audience- is sitting down, and Elvira- the actress- appears in front of him with the spotlight on her.
This paragraph is dominated by adjectives- a lot of them being juxtapositions (“flame-colored”; “smoke-gray”; “animal-teeth”) referring to Elvira’s physical aspect, and there’s a strong emphasis on colors (“a white face”; “flame-colored hair”; “smoke-gray eyes”). Her description alludes to the image of the devil (“flame-colored hair”; “sharp animal-teeth”), and this becomes explicit with the comparison made at the end of the paragraph: “She was as beautiful as the devil and twice as dangerous.”
There’s not a lot of mention of action in the first paragraph, and out of the few that do exist, the most notable one is “[she] laughed at me”. This is repeated twice more and emphasis, without the need of being explicit, the fact that the narrator feels embarrassed with the situation.
In the second paragraph we have, as mentioned before, a physical description of the narrator (“a fat man”). We also have higher emphasis on the description of actions rather than visual descriptions (“She laughed at me; “she turned to the ugly man”).
From here on, the story is told through dialogue and direct speech, which emphasizes the feeling of the narrator being a passive person watching a play. The language here is more casual (“What say we shake him?”), which makes the dialogue seem realistic.
The text above is an excerpt from The House in Turk Street, by Dashiell Hammett, a detective story which can be considered hardboiled fiction. In this excerpt, a new character is presented to us: Elvira. She is a "girl in her early twenties, slender and lithe, and dressed for the street". The combination of her red hair being described as being "flame-coloured" and her eyes "smoke-grey" is an indication of how dangererous she is, which is then reinforced when she is compared with the devil in the passage "She was as beautiful as the devil, and twice as dangerous". The animalization of the character when she is said to have "little sharp animal-teeth" serves the same effect, as does the constant presence of the colour red throughtout the scene ("flame-coloured hair", "red mouth", "the devil", "red plush rope") which is a colour not only associated with danger but also with the seduction power of the femme fatale.
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