Noir Readings

Last week the concept of noir was a little fuzzy for me. But after this week’s reading I have a much clearer overall picture of what noir is. Especially after reading The Postman Always Rings Twice piece the themes of noir were highlighted very well. I enjoyed reading this very much because I felt like I always on my toes because I was unsure what was going to happen next. Overall the readings were a little difficult for me to understand because of the wording so I often found myself re-reading parts in the reading assignments. I also felt that the when new characters would be introduced into the stories without really being introduced. Characters would just arise from the background and become an integral part of the story and you had to pick up quickly that the character is significant to the story. Also the detail in these pieces are so vivid about the location and the description of a person that you almost feel as if you are there. Along with these pieces being difficult to read, I started to notice the racist language that was mentioned earlier that we would see. In the postman always rings twice Cora kept telling frank she was not a mex and she was insisted about it almost as if being a Mexican was inherently a bad thing. With these readings I also had to consider the time they had been written and why that would have affected how the writer wrote the piece. Also all of these pieces have a great amount of detail but they often omitted some key information and one is left assuming how it connects to the story. I think what I learned to best understand noir pieces you have to take the piece as a whole. One part of the text may say something but you need to interrupt it as relating to the whole story and sometimes you don’t understand the whole story till the last line of the piece. Also throughout reading these pieces I sensed a type of darkness the equated with some of the main character being extremely unhappiness with their current life circumstances. Also another theme that I noticed in the readings was that the people that were committing certain crimes were not inherently bad people. They didn’t set out to do hurtful things to other. I think this really helps with trying to connect to the characters. I think often we equate good and bad to being black and white. If you do something bad you are a bad person. But I think these stories bring in a interesting perspective in which an individual can do a bad thing but still be a good person. Love is also a reoccurring theme in these stories, especially forbidden love. The characters act on this feeling and in some instances it does not end well for them.