For the Moments When I’m Feeling Articulate

Eyes Humid with Sympathy

How to begin discussing a class when the first assignment involves reading about a glass phallic symbol that at one point breaks off while functioning??? I must say, it is a somewhat disturbing yet utterly intriguing beginning.

In discussing some of the typical conventions of hard boiled detective novels, I was struck most by the idea that the protagonists are usually morally compromised at some point in the work.  At once this is both perplexing and reasonable.  My initial gut reaction is to rebel against a hero with a gambling problem (for example) and yet on further reading I realize that there are reasons behind this convention that I’m starting to comprehend.   The easiest answer to the question why would the author wish to have a flawed hero is simply that it adds depth to the character.  But why something like gambling? Gambling is one of those issues that divides people.  There are those who see it as good, clean fun and then the others who have seen the mindless pleasure consume someone they love until they become a slave to the casino.  But really, that’s just about anything in life, right? Depending on the situation or who one is the results are going to vary.

That’s why people use gambling as a life metaphor:  Life is like a card game, you do the best you can with the hand you’re dealt.  I think I’ve always been partial to this particular metaphor because it is a balance between a humbleness before the unknown and a belief in human free will.  A character with a gambling problem is much more complex than what appears on the surface.  It was seem like just another addiction but really it is a deeper desire to try and control the course of one’s life.  A gambling addiction is the inability to recognize that one can only control so much in this life.  Unfortunatly, the House wins quite often but that isn’t some sort of cosmic goad to get us to empty our pockets in retaliation.   The pain we experience when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable (gambling is actually an example) is meant to test us.  The pain is just a way of seeing which way we will turn.  Will we turn inward with a stubborn belief that we can solve all our own problems? Or will we walk away from the card table or slot machine and say that today is just not our day?

Our hero is noble in that he takes the risks but his shortcomings arise from a desperado type belief that self reliance is the definining principle that is to be valued above all else.  No man is an island.

January 19th, 2007 at 7:49 am