＂I Thought I was Writing Realism＂: Chester Himes’s Harlem and Blind Man with a Pistol

Abstract

Few crime fiction writers have caused so much controversy over the potential of the genre, as well as its limitations, as Chester Himes. Credited with being the first black American writer who redefined the traditionally white-authored hardboiled detective story, Himes challenged readers with his graphic portrayal of Harlem and the provocative images of two black police detectives, Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones, who are noted for their brutality. But how should we interpret Himes’s own ＂modus operandi＂ in creating his crime novels? Especially in ＂Blind Man with a Pistol＂, readers have long been puzzled by the extremely degrading portrayal of Harlem and the gradual loss of agency of the two detectives throughout the story. Contrary to some critics’ claims that Himes’s writing reflects his racial self-hatred and plays into racist stereotypes, this paper argues that the author chose to disturb readers by exposing the daunting face of black life in a downtrodden Harlem. Instead of offering racially uplifting figures in the tradition of Du Bois’s ＂talented tenth,＂ Himes underscored the appalling end product of racial oppression and economic exploitation in capitalist society. His appropriation of the hardboiled detective tradition serves to foreground the cause of the pervasive violence and corruption in a racialized urban space. The two detectives cannot exercise individual agency like their white counterparts, as their ＂private eyes＂ are restricted by the fact that they are part of the ＂public eye,＂ which is itself the mechanism that results in the violence and disorder around them. Like certain metaphysical and postmodernist writers of detective fiction, Himes consciously disrupted and dismantled his narrative structure in order to offer up political critique. Yet ＂Blind Man＂ is not mainly concerned with the questions of being and knowing in a self-reflexive way; instead, Himes’s unconventional development of the narrative and his refusal to offer closure should be read as his attack on racial injustice and a way of reminding readers of the crimes that emerge in a racist power structure.