Jaida McEwen Mr. Jones English

The Long Goodbye Throughout the world, people introduce themselves to strangers daily. In the United States, hundreds of people commit crimes. Those crimes range from minor offenses to immoral infractions. Currently in California, a group of friends sit around a table, drink coffee, and talk about their next order of business. Taking place in Beverly Hills at this moment, a crime is being committed. Raymond Chandler wrote The Long Goodbye to express to readers the importance of personal responsibility through the characters Terry Lennox, Roger Wade, and Eileen Wade.

The importance of personal responsibility is firstly shown through the character Terry Lennox. “Lennox knows he is little more than a gigolo, but has accepted himself with a kind of refined drunkenness.

He and Marlowe become friends, but after his wife is brutally murdered, Lennox asks Marlowe to help him escape to Mexico. Marlowe, who agrees out of friendship rather than loyalty to Lennox as a client, is thus legally implicated as a possible accessory after the fact.

His action brings him into inevitable conflict with the police”. Terry Lennox is a charming man with an intriguing past. He is the kind of man that turns a stranger into a friend quickly. Seconds into the novel, Lennox befriends the main character Philip Marlowe. On a night out, Marlowe stumbles upon a drunk man and his irritable wife. Shortly after, the wife is gone. “‘Perhaps you can find a home for him’”. Private investigator, Marlowe, found himself in front of a club with a drunk man in his possession.

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Even though Marlowe knows he can not take on the crazy life of Terry Lennox, despite the issues this man is fated to have, Marlowe feels an intense connection and defends him against his nonsensical misfortune”. Fast forward to the day after, Terry Lennox had again lost control and the ability to take care of himself. Marlowe swoops in to cover the incident from the law. Nights later, after the disappearance of Terry Lennox, Marlowe gets a visitor at his front door. Standing in the doorway, Marlowe stares at the ghostly face of Terry Lennox. In Lennox’s hand is a gun. “‘You’re driving me to Tijuana to get a plane’”. That request seemed simple. It seems like a quick ditch of a criminal. Through the strong bond, Marlowe agrees and takes the young man to Tijuana.

With belief of the last bit of Terry Lennox out of his life, Marlowe is majorly incorrect. At the police station, word of Lennox’s wife’s murder had spread. Marlowe is taken in for question of a possible accessory to the crime. In jail, he is questioned, beat, and wrongfully imprisoned, all for a man he met in the street and took care of. Terry was chased down to Mexico by law enforcement. He was found in an old motel, but he was no longer alive. His death was marked down as a suicide, causing him to look more guilty than he actually was. Through the whole course of the novel, Marlowe is searching for closure to what really happened. Terry Lennox was a good guy who got into a bad situation. Phillip believed there was no way Terry Lennox killed another human being. Near the end of the drama, readers find out that Terry’s suicide was a hoax and he had joined a friend’s gang. Terry Lennox represents the lack of personal responsibility, another character representation is through Roger Wade. Readers discover the importance of personal responsibility which is shown next through character, Roger Wade.

Roger Wade is a habitual drunk. He is married to Eileen Wade, a lady known for her beauty. Mr. Wade is a genius author with highly credited writing. Philip Marlowe runs into Eileen, who is requesting of him to find her missing husband.“‘It will kill him’”. Roger’s drinking habits and blackouts were out of control. He usually ran off to escape his home life, but always came back in a short time. Eileen contacts Marlowe because her husband had been out for an unusually prolonged time.“‘He was gone’”. She had no recollection of where he was or where he might have wanted to go. She sent for “Marlowe to rescue her husband from a disreputable clinic for wealthy alcoholics”. Once Philip reached the camp, led by Dr. Verringer, he realized the task was a little more strenuous than he had thought. Roger found himself in a messy situation with a big price tag.

Marlowe was successful in returning Roger Wade. When he arrived to the Wade’s headquarters, Eileen offered him a job. “He denied to take on the ridiculous job as Wade’s bodyguard because he had noticed he could not prevent the author from being hurtful to himself or a big burden to others”. Eileen was tired of her husbands constant need for her to babysit him. Roger was unable to take care of himself even after his return. This led up to his false staging of suicide. Roger Wade represents the lack of personal responsibility, another character representation is through Eileen Wade. The importance of personal responsibility is lastly shown through character Eileen Wade. Throughout the novel, Eileen is shown as the caretaker to everyone. She is described as the beautiful wife of a wealthy, intelligent, uncontrollable drunk. To the outside world, she had a bad reputation for staying with a man who pushed her down the stairs and injured her badly.

Not until the last half do the readers find out that she has hidden an abundance of immoral secrets from everyone in her life. Eileen had taken action to eradicate what she believed was ruining her life. In order to do so, she turned to murder. She had murdered her husband, Roger Wade. Eileen played it up as if it were his decision towards suicide. Marlowe was even blamed for possible murder because he was there. Wade’s murder was very thought out and well timed. Marlowe cracks the case after introducing some major details that had been overlooked, including Mrs. Wade’s faulty alibi. “Until confronted with Marlowe’s evidence, she believes that her murders are justified and that her beauty and power over men will enable her to escape the consequences of her actions”.

She refused to claim her actions. Roger had done her wrong and deserved it. When brought in for questioning by police, she continued to deny the inevitable truth. “‘You told the deputy Marlowe had killed Roger’”. The underlying truth of the murders was the fact that she had also brutally murdered Sylvia, Terry Lennox’s wife. Sylvia, Terry, and Roger were all tied back to each other through long lost love affairs. Eileen refused connection to the murders even after being questioned. “‘I wanted her to take a long look at herself. What she did about it was her business’” (Qtd. in Rollyson 138). All signs pointed to Eileen as the root of all evils. Marlowe staged an intervention to confront the beautiful widow after her spill of lies to the polices. “‘Leave my house’”.

Eileen still refused to claim her actions still. On the verge of being caught, Eileen took the problems into her own hands. Instead of taking responsibility for her actions, she decided jail was not for her. Mrs. Wade decided to commit suicide by consuming an over prescribed dose of Demerol. Raymond Chandler wrote The Long Goodbye to express to readers the importance of personal responsibility through the characters Terry Lennox, Roger Wade, and Eileen Wade. Firstly, Raymond Chandler wrote The Long Goodbye to express to readers the importance of personal responsibility through the character Terry Lennox by his constant need to rely on others.

Secondly, Raymond Chandler wrote The Long Goodbye to express to readers the importance of personal responsibility through the character Roger Wade by his unwillingness to face his mistakes. Lastly, Raymond Chandler wrote The Long Goodbye to express to readers the importance of personal responsibility through the character Eileen Wade by her false belief of justification for immoral actions. Actions that have been carried out always have a positive or negative outcome that does not just affect the instigator.