Noir and How I Feel About It..

1. The Postman Always Rings Twice

The Postman Always Rings Twice is quite the combination of what we learned the idea of noir is, it shows very strong uses of both crime and sexuality to display it’s plot and to get the point of the story across. The idea of sexuality and sexual tension quickly emerges in the second chapter when he goes into the back and the description of a “mex” woman with think legs, hips and chests emerges and then she decides to stand so close to him he can practically smell her, though then he breaks the sexual tension. Although nothing happens now, it is very obvious as a reader that something is going to happen in the future with them and this is just a sense of foreshadowing. Later on, the killing of the greek truly displays the idea of noir related to crime and violence with the words, “after they had the greek dead enough to suit them.” This sentence is dark, deep and frightening, though it really gives the reader a sense of how the characters are on the inside and a very clear indication of the use of noir. A theme that showed to me was the idea that as a reader it was very obvious that something bad was always going to happen, the title itself foreshadows that due to the back that back in the day a postman would have to knock twice in order to let someone know they needed to come out for their package, kind of like a warning that something important is coming. This works in the same sense that the title itself sets up the dark, crime filled background of the story because the “postman knocking twice” could be a symbol of warning for the bad that is going to come.

2. The Wild Party

To start, noir is used to describe and to emphasize sexual motivation, and just by the cover of the book, with the unclothed woman being displayed on the back and the closeness of the man and the woman on the front it is displaying noir. It seems as though just on the first couple of pages there is an example of noir also in the book itself, the example of the book “The Wild Party,” seems as though it is a very promiscuous book due to the fact she states it was just “too hot to publish until 1928.” In my mind that means there was so much going on that was not socially acceptable at the time which would relate to sexual motives and sexual interaction, making the book inside the book a great example of noir too. The story itself starts off by describing a woman body in detail, the way it makes a man want it, how she is made for a man, all things that relate to the sexual desire of a typical man in that time and in the present times. The use of pictures in this story is also very useful, by displaying the picture of the clown, they are normally associated with being scary which relates to crime and the picture of a naked woman relates to the idea of sexuality and noir. The sense of noir and crime come in where after they kiss and it feels like fire, she jumps off and grabs a knife off of the counter, clearly to later do something bad with it. The sense of crime and violence also come in when Queenie is fully aware of the consequences of her actions and how Burrs will threaten her physically, she still decides that she is going to go for Mr. Black because Burrs just is not meeting her sexual desires anymore. The depiction of a knife and physical consequence and the immediate introductions of the sexual desires of the characters makes this a perfect example of noir and how it is used in literacy.

3. The Killers

To start, the definition of noir is a crime drama and just by the title “the killers” as readers one can assume that there will be crime associated with the idea of killers. The idea of noir comes in when they start questioning bright boy and then state they will be killing Ole Anderson for a friend, clearly living up to their names of the killers. It also gives the feel of a crime drama due to the fact that they are suspenseful awaiting the arrival of Ole Anderson because he is later than normal. This reading was different then the others, in the end nobody was killed, but the drama and tension was high, the want to kill was still there, but nothing ever happened. Showing noir through the idea of crime and drama of wanting to kill the poor old Ole Anderson.

All of these literacy items have a sense of crime, drama, suspense which are all aspects of noir. They all seem to go with the same theme too, they start with drama, some with sexual motivation and ideas and then slowly move into the suspense and crime filled like noir items are known for.