Dashiell Hammett’s “Red Harvest”: Lying, Cheating, and Stealing Their Way to the Top

Dashiell Hammett paints a particularly devastating notion of community in his novel, Red Harvest. In his appropriately cynical description of Poisonville, Hammett utilizes simplified language and hyperbole to demonstrate the situation prevalent in America during the period. Much like the United States at this time, crime runs rampant, big business dominates politics and power schematics, and citizens consistently lie, cheat, and scam for their own personal gain. (Ironic how the 1920s are often referred to as America’s “Golden Age”.) Consequently, the formation of healthy interpersonal relationships is nearly impossible. In order to work in a society such as this, Hammett needed to create a different type of private investigator. He needed to create someone that would be acutely aware of the dangers and temptations of the town. Someone that would be crafty and resourceful enough to play the system against itself. The Continental Operative is Hammett’s best shot at creating such a character. At first the Op seems to be the hero that Poisonville has so desperately needed, but as the plot progresses he ultimately reveals that human nature is, in fact, unable to resist basic anarchic urges for power and wealth.

In creating the character of the Continental Op, Hammett manages to show us a man whose allegiances lie with no particular party. The Op resembles the ideal pragmatist, breaking any rules necessary in order to achieve his ultimate goal. At some points during the novel, he reminds us more of a gangster than an actual detective. He is ruthless, cunning, and sneaky when gathering information and plotting the demise of Poisonville’s many criminals. There are times during the narrative of Red Harvest that it is nearly impossible to distinguish whether the Op is an honest detective or a deceitful crook. Hammett uses the Op in order to establish a basic opposition between good and evil and subsequently proceeds to blur the line between the two. Because the Op is not exactly a model citizen (Nor is he a pillar of physical beauty – short, fat, and middle-aged, he almost resembles Thomas Hobbes’ angry brutes in Leviathan), he is able to do many things that a more chaste character might not. Look, the guy carries more fake identification than a high school sophomore. (“I dug out my card case and ran through the collection of credentials I had picked up here and there by one means or another. The red card was the one I wanted. It identified me as Henry F. Neill, A. B. seaman, member in good standing of the Industrial Workers of the World. There wasn’t a word of truth in it.”) By doing this, he can reveal to us the “heart, soul, skin and guts” (Red Harvest, 12) of the hopelessly dishonest Poisonville.

But despite his questionable actions, the Op also manages to show us that he does, in fact, try to be an honest, ethical detective. He strictly adheres to his agency’s code, which stipulates that agents cannot profit off of their cases. From the very beginning, Elihu attempts to buy the Op’s cooperation; the Op rebuffs him, citing the Continental’s rules against taking bonuses or rewards. The Operative is detached, principled, and dedicated. In theory, he is the perfect professional.
Unfortunately, Poisonville eventually gets the better of the Op. He confesses to Dinah towards the end of the novel, “Poisonville is right. It’s poisoned me.” (Red Harvest, 145) Once again reminiscent of Hobbes, the Op is overcome by the idea of violence for personal gain. He becomes an active, involved, interested participant in the “red harvest” and no longer represents the impartial bearer of morality. The Op “declares war on Poisonville” (Red Harvest, 62), and his intervention results in violent blood-bath that only ends when all of the major crooks, (with the exception of Willson and the Op) are eliminated. Here, Hammett is trying to say that in this dark world, we all fall eventually.

It is no accident that the people that the Op works the closest with are often the most corrupt. He is employed by Old Elihu, a man caught up in crime from all directions. “Elihu Willson was Personville, and he was almost the whole state”. (Red Harvest, 9) Dinah Brand, “a soiled dove…a de luxe hustler, a big league gold-digger” and the unconventional femme fatale of the story, has slid her hand into nearly every male pocket in Poisonville. The Op also communicates frequently with the Chief of Police, Noonan. In addition to being involved in shady deals all over Poisonville, he’s also grossly two-faced. He’s always glad to see the Op and continually expresses concern about his welfare even while he makes two attempts to assassinate the him. (It’s always nice to surround yourself with people who care, right?)

Throughout Hammett’s story nothing is what it appears to be. Whether plainly obvious (as with Noonan), or more subtle (such as Dinah withholding information for cash), we cannot take anything here at face-value. Of course, this applies to individual citizens as well as the entire social order of the town. In Red Harvest, Hammett’s mean streets of Personville are simply a stage for a massive fiction, where gangsters impersonate as businessmen, capitalists contract with crooks, and no one is the wiser. Poisonville is a disturbing world where behavior is unpredictable and motivation is unclear. Even language is unreliable here, and Hammett makes is quite obvious that he doesn’t feel language can accurately reflect reality. Sadly, it seems that the only person the Op is ever honest with is the reader.

The novel concludes more cynically than it began – we are shown (after the Op’s somewhat noble attempt) that despite his effects, Poisonville will continue to sink deeper and deeper into chaos, in spite of his “cleaning”. The town is “all nice and clean and ready to go to the dogs again” (Red Harvest 181), and the Op is fully cognizant of the fact that he has not made any significant changes in the environment. Hammett’s sad portrayal of this small town is simply a microcosm of American society in the 1920s. His unapologetic cynicism is necessary in order to accurately describe the political climate and popular attitudes of this tumultuous period in history.