Scents and Odors
Highsmith is far more attuned to the imagery associated with the sense of smell than most writers of crime fiction. Her use of similes and metaphors certainly can in no way be appropriately termed “hardboiled.” Rather surprisingly considering her stated belief to have been a man born into a woman’s body, her use of imagery is far more feminine and the more than occasional reference to scents and odors is especially indicative of this as it has been proven that female nose is more sensitive to variations than the male nose. Consider, for instance, these two examples:
“She was a bit hairy, one front tooth missing, but her sex appeal was apparent at a distance of two hundred yards or more, like an odor, which perhaps it was.”
The simile here is the comparison of sexual desirability to an aroma capable of wafting the distance of two football fields laid end to end. That’s a fair distance for any scent to waft and still remain intact. Of course, the title character of “Oona, the Jolly Cave Woman” does not really send out a pheromone in the traditional sense; it is a comparison to an odor, after all.
By contrast, this unspoken thought by the protagonist of “Nothing that Meets the Eye” reveals just how sinister Highsmith can be in using imagery:
"It's as if I have on some bewitching perfume. Something even women are charmed by. It’s very strange.”
By the end of the story, the mystery of this rather plain woman’s sudden attractiveness is revealed and in the process transforms seemingly metaphorical imagery into something more literal. In this case, the odor emanating from her protagonist is very much like a pheromone: she has come to kill herself and suddenly a woman nobody ever found particularly interesting has truly become bewitching.
The Animal-Lover’s Book of Beastly Murder
The title of Highsmith’s 1975 collection of short stories gives away its theme, its metaphorical focus and, especially, its use of imagery right there in the title. This is a collection of short fiction that is every bit as focused on the psychological of criminal behavior as any other, but with one enormous difference: the murders here all involve animals to one degree or another. What is especially fascinating about these stories is the vivid way by which Highsmith relies upon traditional imagery associated with human psychology to create a menagerie of personification in which the beasts are the humans and the animals respond to callous treatment as any human would. When a camel takes out his revenge upon a cruel owner, the “murder” becomes entertainment for those human equally ill-treated by the man.
In another story, the narrator’s description of a pig digging for truffles becomes imagery setting the stage for an unexpected worker’s revolt; Samson the pig is no longer willing to be alienated from the product his labor helps enrich his owner. By the end of the story, the imagery of a pig who has become as lustfully greedy for truffles as his owner has transformed into a parable of Marxism. Tellingly, imagery associated with the sense of smell plays a very notable role in this story even as such imagery permeates throughout the entire collection to a somewhat less degree.
“Woodrow Wilson’s Necktie”
Highsmith is justly famous for creating a rogue’s gallery of fascinating killers—as well as other characters not quite as diabolical, but memorable nonetheless—more than she is for being a master of imagery. While a few of her stories and especially those featured in the collection mentioned above and others dealing with animals found in other collection are more dependent upon creating a vivid sense of surroundings than others, arguably none are quite as dependent upon this literary device as “Woodrow Wilson’s Necktie.” The story itself is not at all atypical of the author’s work in that the murderer gets away without apprehension by the authorities.
It is especially unusual for the surplus of long passages of descriptive prose which bring to life the inhabitants of the wax museum. So essential is the imagery within the wax museum that the author describes in detail that the story also stands out for being one of the few to feature imagery in the title; an honor more often than reserved for the characters making up that rogue’s gallery. Notably, however, the images of these notorious criminals of the past inspire Clive Wilke through the agency of wax figures in the house of horrors section who are the stars of the local museum.
Strangers (Not Necessarily on a Train)
Patricia Highsmith’s most famous work of fiction is a novel which served as the basis for one of Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest films: Strangers on a Train. Every theme that Highsmith’s subsequent short stories would later explore coalesced in that long-form work and from that novel comes the most prevalent imagery of her stories. If one were to conduct a word search through a collection of every single short story Highsmith wrote, it is quite likely that references to strangers (or “strange” people) would outnumber even the occurrences of the various forms of the word “murder.”
