Deception In The Maltese Falcon

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Deception is defined as a scheme to get what one needs in a dishonest way. The act of deception is one of the themes of the novel, The Maltese Falcon. It starts from Miss Brigid telling Mr. Spade that her sister had run off with a man called Thursby to San Francisco. This act is seen as a deception because she was not telling the truth. Miss Brigid was being deceptive because she wanted Spade and Miles to think that Thursby is a dangerous man and in the process, when she kills Miles, she will be able to frame Thursby easily. Deception is used by the major characters in order to get what they want; however, they receive a deceptive figure of the bird which shows that when one is deceptive, one does not get what one wants. Miss Brigid is so deceptive that she even knows she is being deceptive. In The Maltese Falcon, she says, “Oh, I'm so …show more content…

Secondly, there is alteration forgery. Alteration forgery can be done when there is a piece damaged or missing from the piece of art. The seller knows that a bird statue that has no head, have no value in art auctioning. In order for the piece of art to be valued, the seller will have to replace the head of the bird. In order to raise the value of the bird, the seller will not tell the buyer that the head of the bird was replaced. This is also an act of deception in art that can lead to imprisonment for those involved in the alteration of the piece of art and the seller. Thirdly, there is provenance forgery. Before buying a piece of art that is valued at a high cost, buyers often ask for the documentation ownership history of the art because they know they are not buying from the original owner. This makes the seller to claim that he has the documentation ownership of the history of the piece of art, there by presenting forged documents to the buyer. This also can lead to imprisonment. This is to say that all forms of forgery is deception and they are punishable in some countries where there are law that prohibits

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