Character Analysis
(Avoiding Spoilers)
Grew Up… getting her own way. It seems that whatever her childhood may have been like, Brigid carries with her a sense of drive and acquisition; anything can be bought, at a price. Brigid also shows damage and pain from her past, something that makes her tender in some ways, and callous in others.
Living… in 1930s San Francisco. The city is dark and gritty. Competing interests collide, and deceit is the strategy du jour – something that Brigid offsets by knowing who trust and how to be trusted.
Profession… posing as ‘Miss Wonderly’. Brigid enlists the services of Sam Spade, a Private Invesigator. She asks Spade to track down a man named Thursby, who she says ran off with her sister. However, Brigid has another motive. In reality she’s tracking down something much more valuable than a family member: a mysterious and highly valuable artifact called “the Maltese falcon.”
Relationship Status… complicated. As she spends more and more time with Spade, she becomes increasingly smitten with his jaded, worldly sensibility. When he asks her “Haven't you tried to buy my loyalty with money and nothing else?” she responds, “What else is there I can buy you with?”
Challenge… determining what her true interests are – what is real and what is an affect, used for personal gain. As Brigid deceives others, she also deceives herself. Can her attraction to the Maltese falcon be overcome by feelings she has for Spade? Or are her romantic feelings themselves a fabrication, concocted to endear herself to a strong man who can help her obtain the falcon? Even Brigid herself may not know.
Personality… beautiful, intelligent, and manipulative. When Brigid sets her eyes on something, she doesn’t blink or look away. She is confident, but can feign uncertainty and ignorance convincingly. Despite her wholesome appearance, Spade doesn’t buy it for a second. At her most honest, Brigid can see her own mistakes and moral shortcomings as they are: “I haven't lived a good life. I've been bad, worse than you could know.”
Get to Know her in...
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Spade and Archer is the name of a San Francisco detective agency. That's for Sam Spade and Miles Archer. The two men are partners, but Sam doesn't like Miles much. A knockout, who goes by the name of Miss Wanderly, walks into their office; and by that night everything's changed. Miles is dead. And so is a man named Floyd Thursby. It seems Miss Wanderly is surrounded by dangerous men. There's Joel Cairo, who uses gardenia-scented calling cards. There's Kasper Gutman, with his enormous girth and feigned civility. Her only hope of protection comes from Sam, who is suspected by the police of one or the other murder. More murders are yet to come.
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A coolly glittering gem of detective fiction that has haunted three generations of readers, from one of the greatest mystery writers of all time. A treasure worth killing for. Sam Spade, a slightly shopworn private eye with his own solitary code of ethics. A perfumed grafter named Joel Cairo, a fat man name Gutman, and Brigid O’Shaughnessy, a beautiful and treacherous woman whose loyalties shift at the drop of a dime. These are the ingredients of Dashiell Hammett's iconic, influential, and beloved The Maltese Falcon.
