Since its appearance, The Big Sleep has been debated whether a crime novel could be considered serious literature. This question is difficult to answer, especially because it raises two other questions: Is there such a thing as "non-serious" literature, and if so, who draws the line between serious and "non-serious" literature? As it turns out, answering these questions is not as difficult as it seems, since some critics have already made up their minds. Crime fiction could not be considered serious literature, since its only goal was to entertain or distract the reader. Even if that were the case, one might wonder whether the purpose of any literary work is to entertain or distract the reader, and whether a book that fails to do so should be considered a monumental failure. However, it is still popular to consider detective fiction rubbish at worst, low-quality literature more often than not, and light reading at best. This may be why it is difficult to find Raymond Chandler in any Literature Companion. Although there are a growing number of critics who admit the brilliance of Chandler's work, there are still those who consider his works simply a collection of detective stories. However, if you look closely at his novels, it is difficult to overlook their brilliance and ignore the fact that Chandler's work is the very proof that it is possible to produce first-rate literature through a popular genre. Upon closer examination, Chandler's first novel, The Big Sleep, will prove anyone who thinks otherwise is wrong. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay At first glance, the novel's most notable feature is its ingeniously constructed plot, which carefully weaves together several plot lines, ties them together in a near-unsolvable knot, and ultimately dismantles all the lines to return them to the reader like a single continuous thread. However, there is much more to the novel than its brilliant and complicated plot. One example is Chandler's description of the upper class of Los Angeles. The very wealthy Sternwood family, which employs the novel's narrator, private investigator Phillip Marlowe, is an important symbol of decadence. It consists of General Guy Sternwood, the patriarch of the family, and his two daughters, Vivian and Carmen. The general spends his sickly life in a greenhouse, which provides the only climate his lungs can tolerate. Carmen is an intellectually underdeveloped young woman with a pathological need for sex. His older sister Vivian spends her time losing her father's money in an illegal casino. If these three characters are examined thoroughly, it quickly becomes obvious that they are not simply stock characters or mere background for a detective story. The General is the representation and symbol of the decadence of Big Money in general. The only source of heat that the old man can find in his house is the artificial one, the greenhouse. It is surrounded by tropical plants that manage to survive on their own as little as possible. Even though throughout his life the General has increased the enormous wealth inherited from his ancestors, based on oil that has the same dirty and rotten connotation that Chandler attributes to the Sternwood family, now he literally cannot hang on to it. wealth more.Carmen represents the psychological decline of the upper class, a common motif in literature. It seems that money has virtually made her sick, because the family's greed and lust for money have left her emotional needs behind and turned her into what she has become. He shoots his brother-in-law, who in.