Olfactory Ecologies: Investigating Oil’s Smelly Residues in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: : Literary critics in the energy humanities rarely treat smell as a resource for analytical deliberation. But smells hide truths about the environmental risks we create and inhabit in our petroculture. By studying oil’s odors within Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep , this essay asserts the importance of embracing “olfactory ecologies”: methods of using our noses to sense environmental dangers that are unseen or unnoticed. I argue that Chandler’s imperfect detective Philip Marlowe can help readers train their noses to detect how olfactory pollution induces physical and mental harm.
Source: Modern fiction studies
Author: Anthony Gomez
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4417270711
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