Translating Irony in Popular Fiction: Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon

Authors

  • Daniel Linder University of Salamanca

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.52034/lanstts.v9i.264

Keywords:

irony, translation, American literature, hardboiled novel, Spanish, homosexual male characters, detective novel, Spain, Argentina

Abstract

In Dashiell Hammett ’s The Maltese Falcon (1929), detective Sam Spade uses obscure language to threaten Wilmer Cook, a young homosexual employed by crimeboss Caspar Gutman. What Spade says to Gutman,— “That daughter of yours has a nice belly (...) too nice to be scratched up with pins"— refers literally to how his daughter, while drugged, scratched herself on the stomach with a bouquet-pin to keep awake. However, the statement contains an ironically encoded message for Wilmer: “It would be too bad if I had to shoot (scratch up with pins) your young homosexual lover (daughter of yours).” This sentence carries both the literal and ironic meaning at the same time. In this paper, I will examine how the Spanish translations (1933, Casas Gancedo; 1946, Warschaver; 1958, Calleja; and 1992, Páez de la Cadena) dealt with the dually encoded meaning of the sentence. Because the same-sex love relationship was hidden behind specialized slang and because Spade ’s sentence is so cleverly worded, the translators have overlooked the ironic meaning entirely.

Downloads

Published

25-10-2021

How to Cite

Linder, D. (2021). Translating Irony in Popular Fiction: Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon. Linguistica Antverpiensia, New Series – Themes in Translation Studies, 9. https://doi.org/10.52034/lanstts.v9i.264

Issue

Section

Articles