Themes
As in all of Chandler's novels, one of the major themes in The Little Sister is the love/hate relation that Chandler had for Los Angeles and Hollywood. Much of the novel is devoted to mockery of the phoniness and self-importance of people in the film industry. And one of the most memorable passages in the book is a long soliloquy by Marlowe where he waxes philosophically about the emptiness and shallowness of Los Angeles and its residents. That section is punctuated by Marlowe saying to himself "You're not human tonight, Marlowe".
At the same time one of the main villains of the novel, the one "who never looked less like Lady Macbeth", is not the film star of the Quest family but the little sister: the mousy small town girl who ultimately cares more for a few dollars than for her siblings. Meanwhile, the heroine who is willing to sacrifice herself, and whom Marlowe ultimately rescues, is the jaded Hollywood starlet Mavis Weld.
Read more about this topic: The Little Sister
Famous quotes containing the word themes:
“In economics, we borrowed from the Bourbons; in foreign policy, we drew on themes fashioned by the nomad warriors of the Eurasian steppes. In spiritual matters, we emulated the braying intolerance of our archenemies, the Shi’ite fundamentalists.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)