Search results
Carmen Sternwood is a murderess and a Siren-like figure in Raymond Chandler's novel The Big Sleep. She is portrayed as a spoiled, flirtatious, and unintelligent girl, but also as a doubled and complex character.
Carmen Sternwood is the mentally ill and spoiled daughter of General Sternwood, a wealthy and corrupt businessman. She is involved in a murder, a blackmail scheme, and a love triangle in the novel by Raymond Chandler.
Private investigator Philip Marlowe is called to the home of the wealthy and elderly General Sternwood. He wants Marlowe to deal with an attempt by a bookseller named Arthur Geiger to blackmail his wild young daughter, Carmen. She had previously been blackmailed by a man named Joe Brody.
- Raymond Chandler
- 1939
- Philip Marlowe. The novel's protagonist and in many ways its modern "knight." Marlowe is a private detective who is asked to deal with a blackmailing case for the wealthy General Sternwood.
- General Sternwood. The rich and very ill oil baron who has fathered two wild daughters—Vivian and Carmen Sternwood—and who has hired Marlowe as a private detective.
- Arthur Gwynn Geiger. A pornographer who runs an illegal smut rental shop under the guise of a rare bookstore. Geiger, who is homosexual (or perhaps bisexual), blackmails General Sternwood, and murdered in the act of attempting to further his blackmail by taking nude pictures of Carmen Sternwood.
- Terrance Regan. An ex-bootlegger and husband of Vivian Sternwood. Regan is somewhat of a phantom character: we never meet him because he is dead long before the narrative begins.
The girl, who we later find out is Carmen Sternwood, the youngest of the General's daughters, has a habit of biting her thumb and giggling. Carmen throws herself back into Marlowe's arms and says, "You're cute "—a line she repeats throughout the novel from her lips.
Carmen Sternwood is a spoiled socialite who plays the damsel in distress and the femme fatale in the novel The Big Sleep. She is revealed to be a murderess who tried to kill Marlowe, the detective who investigates the case.
People also ask
Who is Carmen Sternwood?
Who is Eddie Mars in Carmen Sternwood?
What does Carmen Sternwood symbolize?
Who is General Sternwood?
Carmen Sternwood. General Sternwood ’s younger daughter. Philip Marlowe discovers at the end of the novel that Carmen is mentally ill and killed Rusty Regan, her older sister Vivian Regan ’s husband, in a fit of… read analysis of Carmen Sternwood.
