42 pages • 1 hour read
Raymond ChandlerThe Long Goodbye
Raymond ChandlerFiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1953A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Los Angeles
In The Long Goodbye, the city of Los Angeles becomes a symbol of the fractured nature of society. The repressed social trauma, the hidden violence, and the disparity between the rich and the poor take on a physical form, separating the disparate parts of the society into atomized, isolated communities. As Marlowe drives from one place to another, the vast distances between the communities represent the distances between the people. Rather than a single, coherent society, Los Angeles represents a cluster of fractured communities, forced to live vastly different lives in general proximity to one another. The emptiness of the city symbolizes the emptiness of this atomized from of existence. The inhabitants are encouraged to keep their pain to themselves and hide their trauma from their communities, retreating further and further into their small communities until they have no tangible connections with the world outside. Marlowe’s exploration of the city becomes a symbolic investigation of social alienation, as he discovers the atomizing effects of capitalism and the toll it has taken on society.
The city is always expanding, modernizing, and seeking to swallow up relics of the past such as Verringer’s ranch. The ranch is a retreat for artists. Verringer explains to Marlowe that he allowed artists to use his ranch to sober up and create art. However, his ranch has been repossessed by the bank. Verringer deplores the idea of television aerials covering the hills near his ranch, believing that this changing physical environment reflects how the city has no place for artistry.
Even the institutions of the city represent the alienated nature of society. Every institution in Los Angeles is corrupted, to some extent. Marlowe deals with the newspapers, the police, and the district attorney. The newspapers are owned by rich men who dictate what can and cannot be printed, thus shaping reality in their own image. The police are brutal and corrupt, using violence to reach the easiest answers. The district attorney is also beholden to the rich, agreeing to drop the investigation into Sylvia’s murder because Harlon Potter does not want to deal with the scandal. The social institutions of Los Angeles are hollow ghosts, pretending to offer something they do not.
Alcohol
Alcohol is used in The Long Goodbye as a social tool. Whenever characters interact, social expectation compels them to do so over a drink. When hosting a person, the host offers the guest at a drink. When meeting at a hotel, room service arrives with a tray of alcohol. Even in offices and workplaces, characters who interact do so over an alcoholic drink. This symbol of social protocol shows the extent to which alcohol is a ubiquitous part of society. Everyone in the novel drinks alcohol, though some drink more than others. A shared drink can be friendly or romantic. Such drinks can even be antagonistic, in cases when two people who share their dislike toward one another over cocktails. Throughout all this, alcohol is ever present, symbolizing the characters’ dependence on social convention and the performance of manners.
The ubiquity of alcohol has much darker implications. With so many characters hiding terrible secrets, alcohol is used as a coping mechanism. Alcohol numbs the pain of the past, so it becomes a crutch. Rather than dealing with their emotions, the characters take advantage of social convention and depend heavily on alcohol to distract themselves from their raw pain. For characters like Roger Wade, this desire to numb the pain turns into alcoholism. He knows of no alternative, and society offers him no help in dealing with his anxieties, so he drinks more. The more he drinks, the more pain he causes. The more pain he causes, the more he drinks to forget. Wade’s dependence on alcohol symbolizes the peril of a society that is so heavily fueled by alcohol.
Literature
In The Long Goodbye, literature and books symbolize the inherent tension in art and artists. Wade embodies this tension, in that he is a remarkably successful writer who hates the novels he writes. In his mind, he has an idea of what literature should be, and he knows that the books he writes do not satisfy this idea. As such, he harbors ambitions of being a great artist, but he is incapable of creating great art; therefore, all his success is tainted. Wade may be rich and successful, but that same wealth becomes corrosive. His concept of literature as an ideal symbolizes the inherent tension that is everywhere in society, hidden from view. In the novel, success is a veil for pain.
In addition, literature is used as a marker of social class. Wade tries to alleviate his pain and failure by showing off his knowledge of literature. At his house, Wade mocks Marlowe for having a poor knowledge of literature as a way to make himself feel better about producing pulp novels. To Wade, a knowledge of literature shows that he is a better person than Marlowe, even if Wade secretly loathes himself. At the same time, Marlowe has internalized this prejudice to some degree. When he talks to Linda’s African American servant Amos, Marlowe is surprised that Amos has a strong understanding of literature. Marlowe expected Amos to be as uneducated as himself, perhaps due to inherent racial or class bias. Marlowe has internalized the prejudices associated with literature that Wade used against him and then turned them on Amos. Beyond the initial surprise it causes, Amos’s knowledge of literature becomes a symbol of Linda’s wealth: she is so rich, the novel suggests, that she can afford educated servants.
Literature is also deployed in a more abstract form of symbolism. To men like Wade, classic works of fiction comprise the height of literature. But the very nature of fiction is called into question through the portrayal of the newspaper industry. Harlon Potter and the other rich owners of the newspapers have a huge amount of control over what is and is not printed in the paper. In this sense, they dictate the course of reality. Most people’s understanding of reality is dictated by what is factually reported in the newspaper. But when a newspaper deliberately prints falsehoods or refuses to report on a true story, the truthful nature of reality is undermined. Potter and men like him create a form of literature on a social level. Through their money, these men shape the world as a novelist shapes his novel. When fiction and non-fiction are the same, and when reality cannot be trusted to be real, society itself is just more literature waiting to be consumed by the masses.
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