maltesefalcon



//Katie Haskins, Max Linden, and Brian Martin//
 * The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett**


 * Week 1**


 * Katie:** B
 * Max:** D
 * Brian:** A & C

The first detective, Archer, is more concerned about the looks of his clients. Spade, his partner, seems very shady and is hiding many things about his personal and professional life. The first client that we meet, who says her name is Miss Wonderley, is a mean woman with a hidden agenda. Later, she says that her name is Leblanc, but changes it again to O'Shaunessey, which she swears is the correct one. When Miss O'Shaunessey asks the detectives for help, she says that she needs help hiding from a man named Thursby, who it seems is a murderer. When Archer dies, his wife seems upset, but also has a good motive to kill her husband because she seems to be in love with Spade. Miss O'Shaunessey seems to be the only character we are drawn to because there was something interesting about her from the start and she keeps the audience wanting to know more. However, there are no characters that we cannot stand.
 * Assignment:**

We get the feeling that Miss Wonderly knows who killed him, but is trying to cover up for him. Iva has a motive to have killed Archer, but it does not seem like she actually did. He seems that he is the type of person that wants to be alone and do things his own way. He is most likely sad by his partners loss, but he is hiding his sadness because in a way it seems like Spade thinks that he is better off with Archer dead. We do not think that she has anything to do with his death, but people are only blaming her because she is easy to blame. The chapter title refers to Miss Wonderly's several names. She uses the three names to cover her identity and cover up the ghosts of her past. Miss Wonderly admits to having done bad things in her life. She lied about her identity to cover up the ghosts, but is scared that the detective would find out, which would make her look guilty in murdering Archer.
 * Questions:**
 * 1. Who do you think killed Archer? What motive would anybody have had to kill him?**
 * 2. Why does Samuel Spade seem to not care about Archer’s death and change the name of the Agency to Samuel Spade?**
 * 3. What do you think that Archer’s wife Iva has to do with the her husband’s death?**
 * 4. The title of chapter three was “Three Women”. Why do you think it was titled this and what importance does it have?**
 * 5. Why do you think that Miss Wonderly, or Bridget lies about her identity and then asks the detectives to protect her from the police?**

Today we started off the discussion eating some cookies. The cookies were from the cafeteria. They are the best I've ever had. Then we went into talking about the characters and their background stories. Mrs. Wonderly is a mean women, basically a bitch. Samuel Spade is a very shady guy. Then we talked about the characters that we are drawn to. Honestly it is too early to make judgments on the characters so our discussion on them was short. The discussion was much better than for the last book. Mainly this has to do with the content and the overall enjoyability of it. I like it because it is shorter and the 1/5ths of the book are shorter, which makes me want to read it more. Then we started with the questions that Max brought in. This book is a lot about death and that is what Max focused his questions on. When police are looking for suspects in homicides they look for a motive. And that is what we discussed, we didn't think that there was a solid enough motive for anyone to kill Archer. When Archer dies, Samuel seems to not care at all. I feel that his move of changing the name of the Agency is either a coping mechanism for the loss of a buddy or it is a way to try and escape his conscience. I feel that it is too early to make such accusations of Samuel committing murder but I'm not saying no. We felt that Iva could have killed her husband out of lust for Spade but we don't think it is very possible. I don't want to just repeat what Max typed so I am going to stop here. The Book Club Round 3 has started better than the others.
 * Summary:**


 * Week 2

Katie:** D
 * Max:** A & C
 * Brian:** B

Yes it is easy to read. I feel like its at a low grade level of reading skills. It would be more of a classic because its an odd story so it wouldn't teach any life lessons so it wont come up in conversation, like most of books that would be in the conversation category. No, it is pretty simple. This goes back to the idea of it being for a lower grade level. 8th grade or young adult would be the type of rating for it. because it has very simple words and they are not hard to understand. Also the content is pretty good for people who are possibly immature and wont have them laughing such as times when kids say "Haha, they had sex". This was a solid choice for our group to read.
 * Assignment:**

1. What do you think the importance of the Falcon is?** The Falcon symbolizes the distrust in the book. It's valuable and the need for everyone to have it is building suspicion, making it seem like it could be stolen or very important. It is necessary because Cairo is an important character and the author's use of making it known that he is "queer" seems to be a foreshadow of an event Iva Archer seemed to want to continue her affair with Spade by coming to his apartment unannounced. This seems to make it more obvious that she could possibly be the killer, with a motive of love. It seemed strange since they had already finished their questioning, but they probably wanted to search his apartment for anything to further their suspicion. He probably wanted to revert the attention from his kidnapping, which he got caught for and he was just trying to play it off as a joke although he really did commit a crime.
 * Questions:
 * 2. Effie says, "This man is queer," about Cairo to Spade. Do you think the stereotyping is effective or necessary to the plot?**
 * 3. Why do you think Iva Archer was waiting for Spade when he got back to his apartment?**
 * 4. Why do you think the policemen wanted to come into Spade's apartment before they heard Cairo scream?**
 * 5. Why would Spade say that he was trying to trick the police by playing a joke on them with Cairo?**

We first began by eating cookies and reminiscing about Neil Shoemaker. Brian led the discussion and asked the questions that were on the website. We all established that the book was easy to read and was written at a low grade level (about 8th to 9th grade). We also agreed that there were not that many words in the book that we didn’t understand or weren’t familiar with. The book was written in a simple way, probably to appeal to the common people. It also needs to stay simple so that the mystery can be understandable and all the events that are necessary to know and understand the plot are easily understood by all readers. The importance of the falcon is mostly its money value. We believe that it represents his inclination towards money over everything else, including the life of his friend Archer. We also believe that Eva was waiting for Spade because the author is trying to make the reader believe that she is in love with him and did indeed murder Archer. This is probably to divert the readers’ attention from the true culprit. The author seems to be continuously leading the reader to think that one person is the murderer and then all of a sudden begin to lead you onto another character. He seems to keep on putting on character into a scenario which makes him or her seem sketchy and then diverting your attention to the next character so that you forget about the previous sketchy character. Each chapter, the "sketchy" character is replaced with a new one.
 * Summary:**


 * Week 3

Katie:** A & C
 * Max:** B
 * Brian:** D

The overriding emotion is either fear and uncertainty because the story revolves around death and there is a lot of uncertainty on who can be trusted and who cannot be. The book definitely has a black and white and tone to it. When we read the book, we all get the feeling of a black and white private eye type of setting. We also see grey because the book is a depressed and sort of negative.
 * Assignment:**

Spade is a shady character and it goes with the greed idea and that Its not really a problem but its more of a theme or motive. i feel like the reasons for mostly everything is greed, such as the murder and spade taking the case. She is scared because she knows a lot about the falcon and every death has been relating to the falcon. 5 years exactly. Yes, i think that he keeps on giving evidence to support that it was one person and then it goes back and forth from suspect to suspect. its that hard boiled book
 * Questions:**
 * 1. Why did spade take the case, even though he felt she was lying?**
 * 2. Is greed a big problem in this book?**
 * 3. Why is Brigid Scared?**
 * 4. how long has Gutman been looking for the falcon?**
 * 5. do you still think that Hammett is trying to make us look at the wrong guy as the murderer?**

As usual, we started off the meeting by eating cookies that Katie brought. As usual, they were delicious. Max led the discussion this time, asking about the emotions of this novel. We all decided that the overriding emotion is uncertainty. It is uncertain who to trust, and even why we should not trust them. The novel is based on assumptions and guesses and we are just uncertain about events at most points in the book. The uncertainty does not translate into confusion, it only makes us guess and want to know more. Next, Brian asked his questions. We all agreed on most of the answers since they were very straightforward. Since we basically agreed on everything, our meeting did not last as long as most of our other ones. We finished our cookies, Max finished Kelsey's iced tea and then we worked on some of our writings due next Friday.
 * Summary:**


 * Week 4

Katie:** B
 * Max:** D
 * Brian:** A & C

The themes discussed in this book are death and mystery. Some of the images are the statue of a falcon and guns. They seem to represent greed and fear, which seems to be what the novel revolves around. This conveys Hammett's meaning by showing the elements of the emotions he is trying to show.
 * Assignment:**

1. Why does Hammett avoid describing any of the murders in detail?** He wants the reader to use his/her imagination to be able to have their own image of the murder. He wants the reader to be slightly involved in the story. She found out that Cairo was planning on excluding Brigid and Thursby from the selling of the falcon so she and Thursby ran away to San Francisco with the Falcon No, Spade is only trying to get the Falcon. Spade stole the keys from Brigid while she was sleeping and searched her apartment, but when he didn't find anything he returned to the apartment and continued to be nice to her. No, I think that Iva was trying to cover something up by framing Spade. She wanted Spade to get caught for something and get him out of the way. I think that Archer wanted the falcon for himself, and succeeding in taking it, but another person who wants it found out and killed him in order to get the falcon back.
 * Questions:
 * 2. Why did Brigid run away with the falcon?**
 * 3. Is Spade genuinely being nice to Brigid or is he only being nice to get to the falcon? How do you know?**
 * 4. Iva says that she sent the police to Spade's apartment out of jealousy of Brigid. Do you think this is true?**
 * 5. How do you think the Maltese Falcon and the murder of Archer is related?**

This week in our discussion group we ate some Sunchips™ and drank some Sunny D™. The chips came in the most annoying aluminum like bag ever and made us all angry. The juice cheered us up though because its really good. I guess the theme for todays meeting was sun because it was one of the first days of spring. Once we finished eating we discussed the events in our book. The book is finally un-wraveling and we are learning more about the killers and the background of everyone. After our initial discussion we answered some questions about the book. One of the big themes in this book are the way that Hammett does not tell you anything straight up. He makes the reader think about everything. This helps me picture everything in my head, making it better. it is hard to figure out a motive for murder in this book but a common piece in all is the falcon. I guess we will just have to wait to see what happens in the end.
 * Summary:**


 * Week 5

Katie:** D
 * Max:** A & C
 * Brian:** B


 * Assignment:

Questions: 1. When Spade says to Brigid, "Don't be too sure I'm as crooked as I'm supposed to be," why wouldn't we think he was crooked?** We wouldn't think he was crooked because he's working to find the killer and if he was so good at his job, as we know he is, he would have been able to pin the murder on someone else. She feels like she's hiding something and knows she is the murderer, but she doesn't know how to come out and say it Yes, eventually she will because she'll realize he did the right thing and as his secretary, she'll realize that that is just part of his career. It ended there to add the mystery and make you think something else really happened, and to possibly add an element of confusion at the very end when nothing else would be answered. We all agree that the ending was good because it sent a message that when you know the truth, you should let it be known. Also, it was very mysterious and very intriguing, leaving us wanting to know more.
 * 2. At this point, how does Effie feel about Brigid?**
 * 3. Do you think Effie will forgive Spade?**
 * 4. Why do you think it would end with Spade facing Iva?**
 * 5. How did you feel about the ending?**

We started off the meeting with a box of Oreos which nobody ended up eating. Brian asked the assignment questions and we decided that the Maltese Falcon would be a good book to out into the school curriculum because it is a mystery novel and stimulates critical thinking and would make students analyze the things that have happened. Next we did Katie's questions and came to the conclusion that we know Spade cannot be the murderer because the whole novel is about Spade trying to find the murderer. We discussed the importance of the name of the book. The Maltese Falcon was a falcon made by the knights of the Middle Ages that was meant as a gift for the king. The falcon never got to the king and was covered by black enamel that hid the pure gold and diamond statue. Brigid and Thursby found out about this secret and sought to sell it.
 * Summary:**