Talk:The Glass Key

Please verify characters
The list of characters was added by a now-banned user with a history of making bogus additions to articles. Please verify that information. Reviews of the book mention Janet Henry but doesn't say she was a transvestite. Actually, she's the love interest over which the two main characters are competing, and was played by Veronica Lake in the movie version. Other info may be wrong, too. Please check. Thanks. --John Nagle 16:49, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

The list is a joke - the one leg and transvestitism are baseless, Opal was actually Paul's daughter etc. I've removed it. 89.102.137.191 15:17, 25 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I thought that was a bogus edit, but didn't know The Glass Key well enough to be sure. --John Nagle 16:33, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Ned Beaumont
Throughout the book, Hammett refers to Ned Beaumont as "Ned Beaumont". Not "Ned", not "Beaumont", but "Ned Beaumont", even in many references where most writers would have used "he" or "him". Has there been any explanation or literary discussion of this? 24.89.3.219 (talk) 20:37, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Jungian Analysis part of Themes is OR
There is currently a section under Themes titled "A Jungian analysis of Beaumont". I'll include the section below. This is all wp:OR The only reference is to Joseph Campbell's essay "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" which can be found here: http://www.dabhub.com/datas/media/The%20Hero%20with%20a%20Thousand%20Faces.pdf There is nothing in that essay that talks about Hammett or The Glass Key. Hence applying the ideas in that essay to the book is clearly original research. I'm deleting that section. Here is the deleted text: "A Jungian analysis of Beaumont According to Carl Jung, the "first work of the hero is to retreat from the world scene of secondary effects to those causal zones of the psyche where the difficulties really reside, and there to clarify the difficulties, eradicate them in his own case".[3] What is interesting about Hammett's characters is that they meet this qualification, as well as the second, which is "the man or woman who has been able to battle past his personal and historical limitations to the generally valid, normally human forms".[3] In The Glass Key, Ned Beaumont does cross the boundaries of society, the third portion of the "hero" archetype does not follow with Ned Beaumont; "the hero has died as a modern man; but as eternal man-perfected, unspecific, universal man-he has been reborn. His second solemn deed and task therefore...is to return then to us, transfigured, and teach the lesson he has learned of life renewed".[3] While Ned Beaumont does go through a "transformation" of sorts (his relationship with Janet), he does not seek to empower those he lives with. Instead, he runs away to New York City, which suggests that Hammett's "heroes" have an essential flaw in their magnanimity." --MadScientistX11 (talk) 16:28, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Location compared to previous novels
Toward the end of the themes section there is this sentence: "The novel is set in an unnamed city, a more unassuming place—a smaller, less sophisticated location—than his previous novels". This is wrong. Hammett's first novel Red Harvest was also in a small unsophisticated city, really more of a town than a city. It had a name: Personville (although everyone in the town called it "Poisenville") but if anything it was even smaller and more corrupt than the un-named city in Glass Key. Most of this themes section (even after the one part I deleted) seems like wp:original research. I'm leaving as is for now but wanted to document this. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 16:49, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Copyediting needed
The article after the "Characters" section needs thorough copyediting. Examples: Zaslav (talk) 07:25, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * 1) 'Ned Beaumont does not fit the popular, famous archetype of Jung, nor the weaker, less altruistic "hero" type of Hammett's other works, but is altogether different from either.' (a) What is this Jungian archetype and how is it relevant to the novel?  It needs either a good link or deletion. (b) What makes Hammett's other heroes weaker?  That looks like OR.
 * 2) The section 'Beaumont compared to other Hammett heroes' depends entirely on one source.
 * 3) The section 'The Great Depression, small-town morality, and "luck"' has no sources; it only cites the novel. It looks like OR.
 * 4) 'Hammett felt that the finished book was his best work, nonetheless because "the clues were nicely placed...".' What is 'nonetheless' doing here?  What is the sentence trying to say?