Author Archives: smd88

“Inner Truth”: Revealing the Essence of a City and a World In the worlds of both Philip K. Dick’s Man in the High Castle and Dashiell Hammett’s Maltese Falcon, a mysterious object either disrupts the normal rhythm of life or … Continue reading →

Premise: In both The Maltese Falcon and The Man in the High Castle, some object arrives that is rooted in or tied to extraordinary historical circumstances—an almost mythical falcon from the time of the Crusades and an explanation of an … Continue reading →

Old vs. New: The True Markers of Civilization   At first glance, Frank Norris’s McTeague only seems to confirm the rather bleak naturalist theory that humans cannot rise above their base instincts—that they are at the mercy of elements of … Continue reading →

I. Introduction A. At first glance, Frank Norris’s McTeague only seems to confirm the naturalist theory that humans are in the end only pawns of larger forces of ancestry and inextricable urges, which indicates a rather bleak outlook on any … Continue reading →