Noir Heterotopias and Spatial Discourse in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely and The Long Goodbye

Document Type : علمی - پژوهشی

Authors

1 Ph.D. Student of English Literature, Shahid Beheshti University

2 Associate Professor of English Literature, Shahid Beheshti University (Corresponding Author)

10.52547/clls.18.26.247

Abstract

Using paradoxical spatializations, Raymond Chandler challenges the conventional representation of the Southern California region. The coexistence of heterogeneous elements in Chandler’s novels depicts a particular kind of mid-twentieth-century noir genre. These literary spaces, under epistemological tensions, move toward heterotopic descriptions. Finally, this paper calls the literary other spaces produced by Chandler’s stories Noir Heterotopias, and concludes that Chandlerian descriptions seek to induce a sense of suspense in their spatializations.
Acknowledging that heterotopia theory is consistent with Foucault’s method of analyzing the discourse, the examination of Chandler’s novels reveal that the heterotopic spaces are intertwined with the dark spaces of the noir fiction. Furthermore, in the stories, the paradoxes do not reach a climax, therefore, this study suggests that the resulting spaces to be called noir heterotopias. Finally, since the stories conclude with a sense of nonfulfillment, and their heterotopic tensions remain unsolved, it can be said that suspension is the key to the new social order that noir heterotopias seek in their descriptions of Southern California.

Keywords

References

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Critical Language and Literary studies
Volume 18, Issue 26
July 2021
Pages 247-266

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