Rain In The Big Sleep

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler is a mystery, crime fiction novel from the perspective of the detective Phillip Marlowe. Phillip was hired by a rich general to find out and stop his daughter from being blackmailed over gambling debts. Throughout the novel, there is a link between nature and the mood of the chapter. Rain is generally used to emphasise that it isn’t a happy time or chapter within the novel. The novel is set in Los Angles in the United States and rain is very uncommon there which means that the rain’s intended purpose was to depict the mood and setting.

The AQA critical anthology describes ecocriticism as “the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment” – C. Glotfelty, the earth is seen as being

the rain had been mentioned at the beginning of the chapter to initiate and build tension for the reader, anticipation of what may or may not happen. The rain is mentioned early in the chapter when Geiger is leaving a store and about to make his way home, which almost foreshadows his fate and shows us, the reader, that something bad is going to happen, “something told me to wait”. Throughout this chapter, rain is mentioned several times using umbrellas and raincoats and Marlowe describes that the rain had soaked through his convertible roof and is dripping onto the floor of the car, “a pool of water formed on the floorboards for me to keep my feet in”. The fact that it is also dark outside emphasises the down and gloomy atmosphere of what is about to happen, again foreshadowing the murder of Geiger. The chapter starts with it being light out, although darker than usual as it was raining, and ends in the dark as there had been a significant time leap, “at a little after six more bright lights bobbed through the driving rain. It was pitch black by then”. From the moment Marlowe arrives to Geiger’s house to when there is something significant happening within the story, time passes quickly and is only mentioned to

These implications indicate that any trouble has passed although it is still wet which may still present a tense atmosphere but no immediate danger. “A smell of wet earth and flowers came in at the window.” The conversation between Marlowe and Cronjager was strained as the topic was the murder that Marlowe had not called in the previous night. The dialogue is stiff until Cronjager snaps at Marlowe about his claims towards the murder. The implications that it had recently rained indicates to us, the readers, that the previous situation had reached its peak and that this is the descent after what happened. In the previous chapter, Marlowe and a “boy” had an altercation in which he was challenged by this boy and Marlowe took him inside Geiger’s house where he still lay dead. Before the boy is introduced, there is “a ring of mist” mentioned and because of previous use of rain indication to something significant happening there is an element of apprehension for the reader figuring out what is going to happen. We are not told the boy’s name within this