Suggestions
Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select.Please wait while we process your payment
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
Please wait while we process your payment
By signing up you agree to our terms and privacy policy.
Don’t have an account? Subscribe now
Create Your Account
Sign up for your FREE 7-day trial
Already have an account? Log in
Your Email
Choose Your Plan
Individual
Group Discount
Save over 50% with a SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan!
Purchasing SparkNotes PLUS for a group?
Get Annual Plans at a discount when you buy 2 or more!
Price
$24.99 $18.74 /subscription + tax
Subtotal $37.48 + tax
Save 25% on 2-49 accounts
Save 30% on 50-99 accounts
Want 100 or more? Contact us for a customized plan.
Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
SparkNotes Plus
You'll be billed after your free trial ends.
7-Day Free Trial
Not Applicable
Renews April 26, 2024 April 19, 2024
Discounts (applied to next billing)
DUE NOW
US $0.00
SNPLUSROCKS20 | 20% Discount
This is not a valid promo code.
Discount Code (one code per order)
SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan - Group Discount
Qty: 00
SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. The free trial period is the first 7 days of your subscription. TO CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION AND AVOID BEING CHARGED, YOU MUST CANCEL BEFORE THE END OF THE FREE TRIAL PERIOD. You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at custserv@bn.com. Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. Free trial is available to new customers only.
Choose Your Plan
For the next 7 days, you'll have access to awesome PLUS stuff like AP English test prep, No Fear Shakespeare translations and audio, a note-taking tool, personalized dashboard, & much more!
You’ve successfully purchased a group discount. Your group members can use the joining link below to redeem their group membership. You'll also receive an email with the link.
Members will be prompted to log in or create an account to redeem their group membership.
Thanks for creating a SparkNotes account! Continue to start your free trial.
We're sorry, we could not create your account. SparkNotes PLUS is not available in your country. See what countries we’re in.
There was an error creating your account. Please check your payment details and try again.
Please wait while we process your payment
Your PLUS subscription has expired
Please wait while we process your payment
Please wait while we process your payment
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.
Many of the people in Chinatown claim ignorance of the corruption that surrounds them, often with tragic results. Throughout the movie, Jake remains stubbornly incapable of putting the pieces of the case together properly. Evelyn pretends to know nothing about the woman her husband is seeing, in the process keeping information from Jake that may have saved her life. Ida Sessions professes her ignorance to the full scope of the crime she helped commit and therefore cannot see that she is in deep enough to be murdered. At the end of the movie, Jake naïvely tells Evelyn to “[l]et the police handle” it, only to discover that the way they handle it is to kill Evelyn. As Polanski demonstrates, being ignorant of the crime that surrounds you offers no protection from its ravages.
Jake makes several key misidentifications throughout the movie. This inability to see the truth beneath the surface of things serves only to drag him further into the conspiracy. First, he believes Ida Sessions to be Evelyn Mulwray and accepts the case to follow her husband, a decision that leads to his disastrous involvement with Cross and the land conspiracy. Later, he is unable to recognize Detective Loach as the man who tells him to go to Ida Sessions’ house, a mistake that leads to Evelyn’s death. Most important, though, he is unable to see Evelyn as the victim she truly is rather than the murderer he believes her to be, a waste of his attention and resources that leaves him unable to solve the case in time.
Most of the characters in the movie have some dark shame or secret haunting their past, a situation that on a larger scale echoes the hidden corruption of the world in which they live. When people live too long in a city with deep-rooted darkness, they will naturally end up with a bit of it in themselves. Some past misfortunes, like the dam Hollis Mulwray built that later collapsed and killed people, show that even innocent mistakes bring about deadly consequences. Others, like Hollis’s former partnership with Cross, show that even good people are capable of being involved with corruption, while Evelyn Mulwray’s rape and resulting child show how innocent people can be dragged into helping cover up such corruption. Jake’s past and his inability to protect the nameless woman in Chinatown repeats itself to show how impossible it is to escape the evil nature, or tendency toward evil, inherent in many people.
Please wait while we process your payment