would you like to have fun
Max Vasquez
February 25, 2014
Tough Guys/Tough Towns
Elements of a “Tough Guy” Novel Being a tough guy is not an easy job. There are unique and brute characteristics that are expected to come with any “tough guy” image. A tough guy needs to be daring and adventurous, have a mysterious persona, and of course have the ability to not only start fights, but also finish them. Aside from the tough guy’s visceral features, not all of them are heroes, or even good people at all. However, there is one specific element that all tough guy novel’s share in common. In most of the novel’s discussed in class, there is always a specific goal or ambition that the “tough guy” is trying to reach. We’ve looked at characters that are portrayed as heroes, and some who should be locked away in an insane asylum, and in every novel they fought toward their goal whether it was the right thing to do, or not. Evidence of a “Tough Guy” novel where the character is determined to reach their goal can be found in “The Long Goodbye” by Raymond Chandler. In this story, the main character and tough guy, Philip Marlowe is conflicted with suspicion of murdering the wife of Terry Lennox who recently fled to Mexico for reasons unknown to Marlowe. Once released, Marlowe does not lay off the case of who killed Lennox’s wife, and he also challenges the alleged suicide note made by Lennox himself. Throughout the novel Marlowe is hit with gangsters threatening him to give up the case, and a senseless woman who accuses him of a different murder. However, despite the backlash and interruptions Marlowe faces, there is nothing that stops him from getting to his goal of discovering the true murderers of Terry Lennox and his wife. In the text Marlowe states, “But there was something that didn’t figure at all—the way she had been beaten up. Nobody could sell me that Terry had done that…Nobody was going to explain the Lennox case to me, The murderer has confessed and he was dead. There wouldn’t even be an
February 25, 2014
Tough Guys/Tough Towns
Elements of a “Tough Guy” Novel Being a tough guy is not an easy job. There are unique and brute characteristics that are expected to come with any “tough guy” image. A tough guy needs to be daring and adventurous, have a mysterious persona, and of course have the ability to not only start fights, but also finish them. Aside from the tough guy’s visceral features, not all of them are heroes, or even good people at all. However, there is one specific element that all tough guy novel’s share in common. In most of the novel’s discussed in class, there is always a specific goal or ambition that the “tough guy” is trying to reach. We’ve looked at characters that are portrayed as heroes, and some who should be locked away in an insane asylum, and in every novel they fought toward their goal whether it was the right thing to do, or not. Evidence of a “Tough Guy” novel where the character is determined to reach their goal can be found in “The Long Goodbye” by Raymond Chandler. In this story, the main character and tough guy, Philip Marlowe is conflicted with suspicion of murdering the wife of Terry Lennox who recently fled to Mexico for reasons unknown to Marlowe. Once released, Marlowe does not lay off the case of who killed Lennox’s wife, and he also challenges the alleged suicide note made by Lennox himself. Throughout the novel Marlowe is hit with gangsters threatening him to give up the case, and a senseless woman who accuses him of a different murder. However, despite the backlash and interruptions Marlowe faces, there is nothing that stops him from getting to his goal of discovering the true murderers of Terry Lennox and his wife. In the text Marlowe states, “But there was something that didn’t figure at all—the way she had been beaten up. Nobody could sell me that Terry had done that…Nobody was going to explain the Lennox case to me, The murderer has confessed and he was dead. There wouldn’t even be an