Guns and Masculinity in The Maltese Falcon Anonymous College

The Maltese Falcon is a work of detective fiction by Dashiell Hammett that follows a private investigator, Sam Spade, as he tries to piece together the truth surrounding an ancient statue of a falcon. Spade embodies 1930’s American masculinity – he’s brawny, dominant, unemotional, and a “straight-shooter”. Guns in the 1930s, similar to today, were seen as a symbol of power, masculinity, and dominance. Spade, the character most emblematic of masculinity, does not carry a gun throughout the novel because he does not need one. He relies on his brute strength and street smarts to get by. The male characters on the “other side” in this novel – Joel Cairo, Casper Gutman, and Wilmer Cook – all use guns and even pull them on Spade at various points in the novel. These characters’ use of guns compensates for the different ways that each of them lack the traditional features of American masculinity and thus places them in opposition to Spade, which emphasizes his own masculinity.

Joel Cairo lacks traditional American masculinity in two ways – he’s homosexual and he’s foreign. Before he enters Spade’s office for the first time, Effie Perine warns Spade that Joel Cairo is “queer” (42). In the 1930s, the word queer was used as an adjective...