How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"He talks in a rather loud, blustery way and has a nervous, irritable manner. He gives the impression of being—of violence." (1.58)
Brigid's description of Thursby doesn't present him as a very likeable guy. Quite the opposite, in fact. Thursby sounds like an unpredictable thug, who thinks violence will solve any problem. We wouldn't want to run into him in a dark alley….
Quote #2
He raised the muddy revolver. "Ever seen this before?"
Spade nodded. "I've seen Webley-Fosbery," he said without interest, and then spoke rapidly: "He was shot up here, huh? Standing where you are, with his back to the fence. The man that shot him stands here." He went around in front of Tom and raised a hand breast-high with leveled forefinger. "Lets him have it and Miles goes back, taking the top off the fence and going on through and down till the rock catches him. That it?" (2.24)
The plot of The Maltese Falcon is centered on two main goals: (1) finding the falcon, and (2) finding Miles's killer. The fact that two murders occur with the first ten pages of the novel emphasizes how pervasive violence is in this world. Moreover, Spade's reaction to the news of how Miles was shot is unemotional and seemingly indifferent. Does Spade have to develop a thick skin to deal with all the constant violence and deaths that he witnesses?
Quote #3
"Why all the guns?"
"He lived by them. There was a story in Hongkong that he had come out there, to the Orient, as a bodyguard to a gambler who had to leave the States, and that the gambler had since disappeared. They said Floyd knew about his disappearing. I don't know. I do know that he always went heavily armed an tat he never went to sleep without covering the floor around his bed with crumpled newspaper so nobody could come silently into his room." (4.73)
Brigid explains to Spade that Thursby's lack of trust for anyone meant that he never went anywhere without a gun. And the streets San Francisco are full of men like Thursby, toting loaded guns, their fingers ready at any moment to pull the trigger. No wonder so many deaths occur every day.