The Genre of Tess of the dUrbervilles by Thomas Hardy and The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler - Essay Example

Name Tutor Course Date Gender and Genre The novel “Tess of the d’Urbervilles” written by Thomas Hardy has some evidence of violence and crime (Hardy 02). The author does not present violence as a major theme, it nevertheless exists. In this novel the author presents scenes where people either hit or kill one another. The incidences of violence are not many but Thomas Hardy ensures that the reader is treated to some shocking acts (Elvy 17). The most prominent act of violence and crime in the novel is the stabbing of Alec by Tess. In the second novel known as “The Long Goodbye” by Raymond Chandler, the author also presents to the reader some evidence of crime and violence. In this novel there are more acts of violence and crime than in the first novel. Raymond Chandler lets the reader see a number of violence incidents in the novel (Gosselin 11). The worst forms of violence in the novel are murders and suicides. We see Mrs. Wade commit suicide and at her death, she leaves a confession that she killed Wade and Lennox’s wife. These two novels are great pieces of art. The authors chose the genre of gender because it has been prominently incorporated in the books. They both show the contest and encounter between the male and female genders especially in the relationships and murders that occur. This essay will discuss the treatment of violence and crime in the novels: “Tess of the d’Urbevilles” by Thomas Hardy and the “Long Goodbye” by Raymond Chandler. Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy was keen to show how the English Society can be evil through displays of crime and violence (Hardy 10). The incorporation of gender in the novel is a genre in itself. This is also a gothic genre novel. Violence is depicted in the novel through abusive language and insults, deaths and bad treatment. The wrecking of the carriage and the death of the horse being driven by Tess and Abraham is the first evidence of violence. The author wants the reader to see violence through cruelty to animals displayed by the two (Elvy 96). Violence is also displayed through speech. When Alec wants to take Tess to the d’Urbeville estate they get to Trantridge where Alec decides to carelessly drive the carriage. As a result he asks Tess to hold him at the waist. He insists on this but Tess is not for it. Because of her refusal, Alec uses violent and abusive speech on her. He calls her an artful hussy. This name calling amounts to emotional, psychological and verbal violence. More occurrence of violence is seen when Car confronts Tess. Car carries a Wicker basket that has groceries. She discovers that some treacle goes down from the basket to her back. All the girls laugh at her but she only notices that Tess is laughing at her. She decides to confront Tess (Hardy 80). Car is furious and ready to fight Tess but she is taken away by Alec d’Uberville. Their coming very near to fight and the confrontation itself shows that Car is violent in her behavior. Was it not for being taken away by Alec, a bad fight would have ensued. However, the confrontation itself is a form of violence because it probably involves insults and belittling words and gestures or actions. Threats may also have been used in the confrontation. Alec practices sexual violence on Tess. He approaches her to kiss her against her will but she refuses. He also approaches her is her sleep and has sexual intercourse with her. This is a form of violence and criminal in nature because she does not consent to it since she is asleep. The author presents to the reader another incidence that has violence in it (Hardy 44). When Alec suggests to Tess that she should abandon her husband, Tess slaps Alec and she does not even accept to back down when she sees that Alec is prepared to return her blow. She is defiant and tells Alec that if he hits her, she will not cry. She also tells him that she will always be his victim. She is suggestive of the fact that Alec is used to hitting or beating her up. She seems used to it and is no longer afraid of any violent act from him. Alec’s intention is to force Tess into submission. There is no doubt that he may have used many other violent and criminal ways of achieving his objective (Hardy 23). He therefore opts for another method when he discovers that all his techniques have failed. He therefore starts seeking to dominate her by exerting financial superiority over her. Alec gives an offer that he will give financial support to her family. However, he is only looking for a way to make Tess and the rest of her family dependent on him. This is another form of violence but is of a financial nature. Alec wants to dominate and manipulate the entire family because he is the one with the money (Hardy 45). Alec goes to Tess and the two engage in a heated argument after which Tess stabs him in the chest and kills him. By Tess murdering Alec, the author wants the reader to see another scene of violence in the movie. This is the biggest act of violence so far and it could be stemming from the hatred that Tess has for Alec. She could also be revenging for all the things that Alec has done to her and her family. As Angel gets out of town he discovers that Tess is trailing him. Tess admits that she murdered Alec and both of them decide to escape together (Hardy 56). The two of them take a rest at Stonehenge. More violence is seen when Tess is surrounded by a party of men who want to capture and arrest her because she murdered Alec. Tess is captured and executed for murdering Alec. This is violence displayed through the execution of Tess. In the novel, the author introduces Tess Durbeyfield as a very innocent, pure and malleable individual. (Hardy 66). Nevertheless, in spite of this superficial purity and innocence, Tess is not just a cipher. We see an element of violence when she comes out to defend her father and in the process she confronts the rest of the girls on the procession that tend to belittle him. Most of the acts of violence in this novel are committed by the male gender against the female gender and the horse. The death of the horse was as a result of the violence of Abraham and Tess. In this we see that the female gender is also a co-perpetrator of this violence. However, her role may not have been that prominent. Alec is the perpetrator of most of these acts of violence (Elvy 24). The victim is Tess. The female gender in the novel does not look so violent. Tess looks innocent and in most of the cases she only plays victim to the Alec’s violent acts and words. However, the female gender goes against the norm in the novel when Tess commits the biggest crime so far and the worst form of violence in the novel. Tess stabs Alec in the heart and this causes his death. At this, it can be concluded that Tess and therefore the women in the novel are more violent than anybody else (Elvy 35) The Long Goodbye” by Raymond Chandler This novel also has evidence of violence and crime. Most of the incidents of violence in this novel are perpetrated by the female gender towards self or towards the male gender or the female gender. The genre of this novel is gender because gender has been used a lot by the author. The novel shows the subjectivity of the masculine created through melancholy (Widdicombe 94). It is also a hard-boiled genre. It transcended the hard boiled fiction genre because it was more than a mystery story. In the beginning of the novel, we see the first incident of violence. It is the month of October or November in 1949 at a club called The Dancers. Philip Marlowe and a drunken man called Terry Lenox meet. The man is scarred on one side of the face. These two people become friends in the few months that follow. Things change between them as Lennox comes home late on a particular night in 1950 June. He wants a ride to Tijuana airport. Marlowe accepts because Lennox does not reveal to him details of why he is running. When he goes back to Los Angeles it is discovered that the wife to Lennox was found lifeless in her hotel room and that her death occurred before Marlowe ran away. This is the first incidence of violence in the novel (Gosselin 90). Details about the murder of Marlowe’s wife show that the murderer could be Marlowe and that to do this act he must be a violent man. What follows is the arrest of Marlowe because he does not want to cooperate with those carrying out the investigations. This is further evidence that he could be the possible murderer of his wife. The investigators want Marlowe to confess of having assisted Lennox to run away. Another incident of violence occurs when Lennox dies. He decides to direct violence on himself by committing suicide (Widdicombe 56). He has a confession on his side that is written in full. Both the deaths of Lennox’s wife and the death of Lennox himself are forms of physical violence. We see more violence in the novel in form of death and murder when we come across the injury and later death of another person called Wade. Marlowe leaves the Wades’ home and later makes many trips to and from the home. On one of these trips he discovers Wades lying in the grass and he has a cut on the head. This is not the end of violent incidents in the novel. Although we do not know how Wade got the cut on his head, it is clear that it resulted from a violent encounter. He could have been attacked by violent people. Verbal, psychological and emotional violence is directed at Marlowe because of the Lennox case (Widdicombe 77). Some people including Mendy Menendez, a friend to Lennox, the father in law to Lennox, Wade’s wife, Wade’s servant Candy and the police threaten Marlowe to drop the case. Marlowe continues to be the victim of more violence especially after the death of Wade. He is accused of killing Wade and Candy cooks a story to implicate Marlowe into the murder. To Marlowe, this has the effect of psychological torture and emotional disturbance. It is a form of violence directed at him as well. The death of Wade is another occurrence of violence that the author wants the reader to notice in the novel. Marlowe is called by Wade who requests him to go to his house so that they can have lunch together (Chandler 68). At the time when they are together, Wade drinks himself into a stupor and because of this Marlowe decides to go out so that he can give Wade time to recover. When Marlowe comes back, he finds Wade’s wife ringing the door bell claiming that she had forgotten her key. Marlowe discovers that Wade is dead and his body is lying on the couch. There is a high possibility that Wade has committed suicide. This is physical violence that he has decided to do to himself. However, Marlowe is wrongfully accused by Wade’s wife of killing him. Candy makes up a story in which Marlowe is implicated. Candy thinks that Marlowe is the murderer but through an interrogation, these claims are dismissed. When Marlowe is called by Spencer regarding the death of Wade he forces Spencer to take him to Mrs. Wade. Spencer if forced to take Marlowe although this was not his intention (Chandler 78). He therefore becomes a victim of a form of violence perpetrated by Marlowe. This violence is not physical or sexual but emotional and psychological. It is clear that Spencer may be angered or emotionally disturbed by Marlowe’s decision to bully him into going to see Mrs. Wade with him. The crime and violence in this story does not end here. We see more acts of crime and violence as Marlowe and Spencer gets to Mrs. Wade’s place. Marlowe interrogates Mrs. Wade on the demise of Terry Lennox’s wife. At first, Eileen Wade tries to heap the blame on Roger Wade. However, Marlowe does not accept her version of the story and insists that she was the one that killed Roger Wade as well as Mrs. Lennox (Chandler 66). Although we do not have the facts about this, it is clear that the blame that Eileen receives over these two deaths can destabilize her emotionally. It is a form of emotional and psychological violence that Eileen is treated to. She is blamed for murder yet the person blaming her has not done any investigations and has no evidence to prove his claims. According to Marlowe, Lennox and Wade were both husbands to Eileen Wade. He claims that Lennox or Paul Marston was her first husband before Wade came into her life. Another incident of crime and violence comes to the attention of the reader when the author presents the death of Mrs. Wade. The novel is obviously full of incidents of suicide. Marlowe is called and given the information that Eileen Wade has committed suicide. Where her lifeless body is lying there is a confession note that Mrs. Wade left behind. She admits in the note that she was the one that killed Roger Wade and Lennox’s wife who died in the hotel room. Marlowe does not want to leave the story. Suicide is definitely a crime and a form of physical violence that a person does to self. Eileen has been violent to herself and her violence ends up in her death. We also see more violence and crime when Menendez assaults Marlowe. Menendez is consequently arrested through a scheme planned by a police commissioner called Randy Starr. This police commissioner served with Marston and Menendez in the war. At the end of it, Marlowe is visited by a man from Mexico who says that he was present at Lennox’s murder in the guest house. Marlowe refuses to accept the story (Gosseline 78). In this novel, the female gender is responsible for most of the acts of violence and murder. Mrs. Wade Killed Lennox’s wife, she also killed Roger Wade and went a head to commit suicide. The acts of crime and violence committed by a man are few. Wade commits suicide and Spencer assaults Marlowe although Marlowe bullied him into going to see Mrs. Wade. These two are lesser significant forms of violence than the murders and suicides seen in the novel (Hoffeins 23). In these two novels violence and murder are committed by both men and women. In the novel Tess of the d’Urbevilles” by Thomas Hardy the most violent person is Tess who is a woman. She commits the only murder in the novel. In the other novels called the Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler, Mrs. Wade comes out as the most violent person because she commits most of the murders. She kills two people and herself. It can therefore be concluded that the most violent gender in these novels is the female gender. Women come out as being more violent and criminal in nature than the men (Widdicombe 45). Conclusion In conclusion, this paper has discussed the treatment of violence and crime in two novels namely: Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy and The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler. The authors of these two novels have discussed many incidences of violence. The genre of these two novels comes out vlearly with the incorporation of the gender aspect by the author. Gender features prominently in all the scenes as well as in the criminal activities and violence. The violence and crime includes murders, suicide and other forms of violence that are physical, emotional, financial or psychological in nature. The violence and crime in the two novels are committed by both gender meaning men and women. However, most of the worst and most serious crimes and forms of violence are committed by the female gender. Tess murders Alec and Eileen Wade murders Lennox’s wife and Wade himself. In these two novels, it can conclusively be said that women are more violent than men. Works Cited Chandler Raymond. The Long Goodbye: A novel. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group 2002. Elvy Margaret. Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Ubervilles: A critical Study. Crescent Moon Publishing 2012. Gosselin A. Johnson. Multicultural Detective Fiction: Murder from the “Other” side.Routledge1999. Hardy Thomas. Tess of the d’Ubervilles - Sparknotes Literature Guide. Spark Publishing 2002. Hardy Thomas. Tess of the d’Ubervilles. Interactive Media 2012. Hoffeins Martina. The Use of Language in the Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler. Penguin Publishers 2007. Widdicombe Toby. A reader’s Guide to Raymond Chandler. Greenwood Publishing 2001. Read More