The Long Goodbye: Analysis of Major Characters

Author: Raymond Chandler

First published: 1953

Genre: Novel

Locale: Los Angeles, California, and its suburbs

Plot: Detective and mystery

Time: The 1950's

Philip Marlowe, a Los Angeles private detective who befriends Terry Lennox, a gentle drunk with good manners. When Lennox comes to Marlowe for help, the detective drives him across the border into Mexico, unaware that earlier that night, Lennox's rich and promiscuous wife, Sylvia, had been brutally murdered. Later, Marlowe is drawn into the rich social world dominated by Sylvia's father, Harlan Potter, when Eileen Wade asks him to help her writer husband, Roger Wade. As Marlowe tries to understand and help Roger Wade, an alcoholic, he finds himself trying to find the murderer of Sylvia Lennox. With the help of detective Bernie Ohls, Marlowe discovers the truth.

Terry Lennox, a war hero and a drunkard. He marries Sylvia Lennox for the second time, knowing what kind of woman she is. After Marlowe has taken him across the border, he flies to a remote Mexican village, from which he writes Marlowe a suicide note. Harlan Potter's lawyer confirms his death, and everyone but Marlowe believes he killed his wife.

Roger Wade, a writer of popular historical romances who drinks too much. Marlowe believes that Wade is drinking to forget some terrible experience, but before Wade reveals what it is, he apparently commits suicide. Marlowe believes that his suicide, like Terry Lennox's, was phony.

Eileen Wade, an incredibly beautiful woman who tries to get Marlowe involved in the problems of her marriage. He finds her behavior strange and inexplicable, as when she apparently mistakes him for a former lover and tries to seduce him. She had been, Marlowe discovers, the wartime wife of Terry Lennox and later murdered Sylvia, whom she blamed for what became of Terry. When Marlowe reveals that he will try to prove that she murdered Sylvia Lennox and Roger Wade, Eileen commits suicide.

Harlan Potter, the father of Sylvia Lennox and Linda Loring. He owns newspapers and is worth more than $100 million. He uses threats and the promise of helping Marlowe's business to try to get Marlowe to stop investigating the death of his daughter, Sylvia. His privacy is worth more to him than anything else in life, and he has the money and power to preserve it.

Sylvia Lennox, a beautiful, spoiled, and rich woman who uses men for her amusement. She has been married six times, twice to Terry Lennox. No one is surprised when she is murdered, because a number of people would have had strong reasons to kill her.

Linda Loring, Sylvia's sister. Also beautiful, she is otherwise unlike her sister, remaining faithful to her suspicious and nasty doctor husband until the end. She leaves him to spend the night with Marlowe before departing for Paris, where she will obtain a divorce and begin a new life.

Bernie Ohls, a sheriff's deputy, an old friend of Marlowe. He helps Marlowe with information about the police investigation of Sylvia Lennox's death and argues with Marlowe about the state of American society.