The Hunter - Background Notes Flashcards
Parker’s world is not merely characterized by violence, it is founded upon violence: To an extent seldom found in even the hardest-boiled thrillers, it is the willingness as well as the ability to kill that separates the quick from the …
dead
In The Hunter, violence is used to force Parker’s loving wife to attempt
to murder her husband, which establishes the relative priorities of force and sentiment
Parker is a fictional character created by
Donald E. Westlake. Westlake wrote under the pseudonym Richard Stark.
A ruthless career criminal, Parker has almost no traditional redeeming qualities, aside from
efficiency and professionalism. Parker is cold, methodical, and perfectly willing to commit murder to get what he wants.
He does, however, have a rigid code of honour, in that A) he will absolutely not
double-cross another professional criminal with whom he is working, unless B) if anyone tries to double-cross him, Parker will unhesitatingly undertake to exact a thorough and brutal revenge.
What is Parker’s first name?
`Parker’s first name is never mentioned in the novels, and there are many details about him which remain unknown. In fact, the name “Parker” might itself be an alias.
In The Hunter parker chases a past associate who betrayed him in a heist and left him for dead. Parker survives/dies?
He survives, but is arrested by the police.
Slowly and methodically, Parker tracks down who?
Mal Resnick, his former accomplice, who intimidated Parker’s weak-willed wife into shooting her husband after the job had been completed.
When the gambling syndicate known as The Outfit refuses to return to Parker his share of the loot Resnick gave them to make good on a debt, Parker does what?
takes on The Outfit as well
A brief mention is made in The Hunter of Parker first having used a gun in where?
Germany (implying that he served in World War II),
Parker was arrested and imprisoned in the Hunter for
vagrancy
Physically, Parker is described in the opening paragraphs of The Hunter as
big and shaggy, with flat square shoulders… His hands, swinging curve-fingered at his sides, looked like they were molded of brown clay by a sculptor who thought big and liked veins. His hair was brown and dry and dead, blowing around his head like a poor toupee about to fly loose. His face was a chipped chunk of concrete, with eyes of flawed onyx. His mouth was a quick stroke, bloodless.”
