Quote 1
"I've got a mean disposition. Attempted assassinations make me mad." (8.46)
The Op gets sore at Noonan when he realizes that Noonan was trying to get him killed. Why does the Op need to act so tough? Is it all an act, or does he think it's necessary to be "mean" if he wants to take on the big guys?
Quote 2
"I'd seen you maul him around. […] He's in love with you, and this isn't the first time you've done it. He acted like he had learned there was no use matching muscle with you. But you can't expect him to enjoy having another man see you slap his face."
"I used to think I understood men," she complained, "but, by God! I don't. They're lunatics, all of them."
"So I poked him to give him back some of his self-respect. You know, treated him as I would man instead of a down-and-outer who could be slapped around by girls." (10.72)
This conversation takes place between the Op and Dinah. Dinah likes to push Dan around, and sometimes even slaps him when she's angry. In the macho world of Personville, a man can't just sit there and let another man witness his woman beating him up. So the Op explains that he had punched Dan to give him his self-respect back. Why is beating people up equated with self-respect? What's up with that?
Quote 3
"Plans are all right sometimes," I said. "And sometimes just stirring things up is all right—if you're tough enough to survive, and keep your eyes open so you'll see what you want when it comes to the top." (10.91)
The Op is trying to stir up trouble, see what happens when he gets people all riled up. He's definitely tough enough to take on whatever trouble he causes, but is his masculine aggression an asset or a flaw? Shmoop amongst yourselves.
Quote 4
"I promise you nothing," I said. "Why should I? I've got you with your pants down. Talk to me or Noonan. And make up your mind quick. I'm not going to stand here all night." (14.53)
In this exchange, the Op accuses MacSwain of being the real murderer of Tim Noonan. We have yet another battle of testosterones here as MacSwain tries to avoid the Op's questioning, and the Op won't let up on his bullying. Eventually the Op beats the truth out of MacSwain (figuratively speaking, of course).
Quote 5
"I've got to have a wedge that can be put between Pete and Yard, Yard and Noonan, Pete and Noonan, Pete and Thaler, or Yard and Thaler. If we can smash things up enough – break the combination – they'll have their knives at each other's backs, doing our work for us. The break between Thaler and Noonan is a starter. But it'll sag on us if we don't help it along." (15.29)
Red Harvest is a man's world if ever there was one. The whole city is controlled by competing male gangsters, and the Op is counting on their male competitiveness to lead them into a gang warfare. Do you think the Op's method of testing the characters' masculinity is morally acceptable?
Quote 6
"What's your idea of how to go about purifying our village?"
[…] "The closest I've got to an idea is to dig up any and all the dirty work I can that might implicate the others, and run it out. Maybe I'll advertise—Crime Wanted—Male or Female. If they're as crooked as I think they are I shouldn't have a lot of trouble finding a job or two that I can hang on them." (10.76)
The Op jokes with Dinah that Poisonville is so corrupt that all he has to do is put an ad in the paper requesting the services of a criminal, and he'll be knee-deep in crime. But jokes aside, the Op's words here are pretty spot on. There isn't a single character in the pages of the novel who has completely clean hands, except for Donald who is murdered before we even meet him. Can you think of anyone in the novel who isn't involved in any crime whatsoever?
Quote 7
"There was plenty else I could do […]. But it's easier to have them killed off, easier and surer, and, now that I'm feeling this way, more satisfying. I don't know how I'm going to come out with the Agency. […] It's this damned town. Poisonville is right. It's poisoned me." (20.36)
There's that word again. Poison. The Op admits that he feels poisoned by the bloodlust of Personville. He not only thinks that it's necessary for the criminals to be killed off, but he also finds it more satisfying. That's a bit of a red flag, a hero normally doesn't enjoy death and murder. So is Hammett presenting the Op as a kind of antihero?
Quote 8
"You're going to have the mayor, or the governor, whichever it comes under, suspend the whole Poisonville police department, and let the mail-order troops handle things till you can organize another. […] It can be done, and it's got to be done. Then you'll have your city back, all nice and clean and ready to go to the dogs again." (26.40)
At the end of the novel, the Op gives a gangster-free Personville back to Elihu. But the real question is whether the city is truly rid of its crimes and criminals. How long will this state of peace last? The Op does say that the city will probably "go to the dogs again," so does he believe so little in his success that he's predicting the eventual decay of Personville later on down the line?
Quote 9
"You're the damndest client I ever had. What do you do? You hire me to clean town, change your mind, run me out, work against me until I begin to look like a winner, then get on the fence, and now when you think I'm licked again, you don't even want to let me in the house. […] I'm not licked, old top. I've won. You came crying to me that some naughty men had taken your little city away from you. Pete the Finn, Lew Yard, Whisper Thaler, and Noonan. Where are they now? Yard died Tuesday morning, Noonan the same night, Whisper Wednesday morning, and the Finn a little while ago. I'm giving your city back to you whether you want it or not." (26.36)
The Op calls Elihu Willsson out on his hypocrisy in one of their meetings together. Having succeeded in getting the rival gang members to kill each other off, the Op returns Personville back to Elihu, all cleaned up. But what the Op doesn't tell Elihu is how many rules he had to break in order to accomplish this goal. As readers, we're left wondering whether or not the Op feels at all responsible for the deaths that occurred.
Quote 10
"You're going to tell the governor that your city police have got out of hand, what with bootleggers sworn in as officers, and so on. You're going to ask him for help – the national guard would be best." (26.40)
The Op orders Elihu to re-establish order in Personville by replacing the entire police force and bringing in the National Guard. What are the chances that the National Guard will be able to reinstate law and order in the city? Does Hammett leave us with a hopeful image of Personville's future or a bleak one?
Quote 11
"Shall we go out and look at the remains?" I suggested, getting up.
He neither got up nor looked up.
"No," he said wearily to his lap. "To tell the truth, I don't want to. I don't know as I could stand it just now. I'm getting sick of this killing. It's getting to me – on my nerves, I mean. […] Everybody's killing everybody. Where's it going to end?" (18.30)
All this blood and death is finally getting to Noonan. In one of his rare moments of vulnerability, Noonan expresses his disgust with all the killing and we actually find ourselves sympathizing with him. What does Noonan's disgust reveal to us about the dangers of violence?
Quote 12
"I've arranged a killing or two in my time, when they were necessary. But this is the first time I've ever got the fever. It's this damned burg. You can't go straight here. I got myself tangled at the beginning. When old Elihu ran out on me there was nothing I could do but try to set the boys against each other. I had to swing the job the best way I could. How could I help it if the best way was bound to lead to a lot of killing? The job couldn't be handled any other way without Elihu's backing." (20.22)
This is probably the only moment in the novel when the Op expresses actual feelings of regret for his role in starting all the violence. He tells Dinah how he could have chosen other methods, but that the "best" way involved a lot of killing. Do you buy this explanation? Has Personville poisoned the Op with bloodlust, or is he only making excuses for himself?
Quote 13
I explained, "He seemed to think I'd killed Dinah Brand. […]"
"Well?"
"You mean, did I kill her? I don't know, Mickey. I'm trying to find out." (26.76)
This is the moment of reversal when the Op goes from being the hunter to the hunted. He is wanted by the police, and he can't even remember if he killed Dinah. The line between villain and hero is at its most hazy in this moment.
Quote 14
"The Continental's got rules against taking bonuses or rewards," I said. (7.78)
The Op's professional code of ethics forbids him from accepting money as a bonus or reward. We can see here that the Op adheres to his own set of rules, even when there's no one around to keep him accountable.
Quote 15
"You haven't forgotten that your check was to cover the cost of investigating crime and corruption in Personville, have you? […] I'll give you nothing except a good job of city-cleaning. That's what you bargained for, and that's what you're going to get." (7.81)
The Op promises that he'll give Elihu his money's worth and bring back a cleaned-up Personville. The Op isn't someone who can be bought with money. In particular, he takes pride performing his job well.
Quote 16
"There's no use taking anybody into court, no matter what you've got on. They own the courts, and, besides, the courts are too slow for us now. […] I've got to have results to hide the details under. So evidence won't do. What we've got to have is dynamite." (15.30)
The Op dismisses the effectiveness of the court system and even goes so far as to suggest that he needs to have big results to cover up the dirty details that led to them. What's happening to the moral structure of the Op's code when he enters Poisonville? Why does he become more and more willing to let things slide all in the name of finding that "dynamite"?
Quote 17
"Now hop to it," I said. "And don't kid yourselves that there's any law in Poisonville except what you make for yourself." (15.34)
The Op seems to have no moral qualms about inventing his own rules and laws in Poisonville. Is it right or wrong of the Op to take matters into his own hands and determine the fates of dozens of so-called criminals? What if the Op is turning into a morally corrupt criminal himself?
Quote 18
"Look. I sat at Willsson's table tonight and played them like you'd play trout, and got just as much fun out of it. I looked at Noonan and knew he hadn't a chance in a thousand of living another day because of what I had done to him, and I laughed, and felt warm and happy inside. That's not me. I've got hard skin all over what's left of my soul, and after twenty years of messing around with crime I can look at any sort of a murder without seeing anything in it but my bread and butter, the day's work. But this getting a rear out of planning deaths is not natural to me. It's what this place has done to me." (20.38).
Notice here how the Op spends a lot of time separating his old self from his current self. He emphasizes that the person he is right now "isn't me." Personville has poisoned him so that now he gets a kick out of "planning deaths" and feels "warm and happy inside" as he plots Noonan's demise. I guess we have to give the Op credit for being self-aware of his flaws, but he doesn't try to stop the murders from happening. So how sorry does he feel really?
Quote 19
"I've got ten thousand dollars of your money to play with. I'm going to use it opening Poisonville up from Adam's apple to ankles." (7.88)
The Op triumphantly reminds Elihu that he's going to use all of Elihu's money to stir things up in Poisonville. Although the Op doesn't keep the money for himself personally, he does need to have access to it in order to complete his mission, which suggests that money has a powerful grip over everyone in the community.
Quote 20
"I win myself six hundred iron men. […] And then I lose myself that and my own two hundred and some in a crap game. What do you think of that? I pick up six hundred berries like shooting fish, and have to bum four bits for breakfast."
I said it was a tough break but that was the kind of world we lived in. (12.12)
MacSwain tries his hand at gambling and loses all he has. It makes us scratch our head over why gambling is so appealing, especially for those have more to lose. And the only real thing that seems to separate the criminals from the heroes is who gets the lucky break.