A Detective in Distress

Abstract: This thesis examines the gradual changes in Raymond Chandler's detective, Philip Marlowe. The character begins with an anachronistic code of knightly behavior that even his ironic self-detachment cannot salvage. He turns to domestic routines such as preparing breakfast and serving drinks, but these echo with loneliness. Both his chivalric code and his household habits fail him, and Marlowe avoids despair only through a woman's redemptive love. Ultimately, Chandler's supposed detective novels form a love story of one man's quest for domestic fulfillment.