Black Dress (Symbol)
The day after her husband is killed, Iva Archer, Miles' widow, comes into Sam's office wearing a black dress of mourning. Miles was Sam's partner, but she and Sam were having an affair. As she weeps about the death of her husband, she simultaneously throws herself at Sam, embracing him and professing her love. Iva is a widow, but she is also desperate to have a relationship with Sam, and so the dress becomes a more complicated symbol. It is not only a symbol of her grief about the murder, but also of her desires to bury her relationship with Miles.
The Maltese Falcon (Symbol)
The titular Maltese Falcon is a symbol for the highly desirable goal that is also unattainable. Gutman and his cohorts chase the statuette because it is allegedly worth so much money, but they can never find it, continuing on even after 17 dangerous years of no luck. Even Sam becomes seduced by the material promise of the statuette, and it remains ambiguous whether he would have actually accepted his share of its price had the statuette been real. The Maltese Falcon, as an exotic historical artifact, is also a symbol of Western civilization, the immense wealth that was fought over during the Crusades, and—as Gutman's story goes—the struggle between noblemen and pirates.
Dead Man Knocking (Symbol)
Captain Jacobi arrives at Sam's apartment to deliver the Maltese Falcon after being chased off the boat by Gutman's men. As soon as he walks through the door he collapses and dies, but not before managing to utter the word, "Falcon." Jacobi, a man who is nearly dead before he has arrived, is a symbol of the danger that accompanies the statuette, and the high stakes of the fight for its possession.
Second Drink (Symbol)
When Sam sits with Gutman in his hotel room for the first time, Gutman tells him not to over-drink as they share liquor. Gutman is full of prescriptive advisories. In their second meeting, Gutman gives Sam two drinks instead of one, and the second is laced with a drug that knocks him out. Thus, the second drink becomes a symbol for Sam's undoing, a mark of overindulgence that dulls one's judgment. Accepting too many gifts from a criminal will undoubtedly get you hurt.
Guns (Symbol)
Wilmer is a "gunsel," in Sam's words, a young man who carries a gun (also code for a homosexual thug). Additionally, Cairo carries a gun, and even Gutman eventually pulls a gun on Sam. Sam, by contrast, does not carry a gun. The use of firearms becomes a symbol for the coercive and bullying way that the villains do business in the film. Sam, on the other hand, is more interested in a fair battle of wits than a shoot-em-up duel. Sam never carries his own gun, but is able to disarm his opponents easily, representing his bravery, competence, and intelligence as a private investigator.
