Power and authority are two important elements in the world Chester Himes has created. We can see power and authority in an institutional sense with the role of police officers or even the relationship between Bob and the shipyard manager. Power is also on display within society. The power dynamic between genders as well as between people of different races reveals that the way in which people interact and are perceived is influenced by power. As a political science major, I could not help but notice how much this display of power aligns with the theory of Michel Foucault.
While there are many theories on power, Michel Foucault explains power to be like a chain-linked web, one on which we can act and use power, while power can simultaneously act on us as well. Seeing power being used causes a person to be caught in the web of power and therefore influences them to exert power themselves. Bob is a perfect example of someone who gets caught in this web of power.
Power is something that is central to Bob and how he sees the world. When looking at examples such as when the cops pulled over him and Alice, or instances with the shipyard manager, power is being exerted against Bob in a discriminatory way, and both seeing and experiencing this power used on him, influences Bob to want to use power as well, in a way of regaining his agency.
We can see this in his interactions with women, especially with Alice. When Alice and Bob were hanging out with Alice’s friends after the cop incident, Bob slaps Alice when she was with Stella: “She gave me a look of raw hatred. I’d slap her before I knew it” (67). Bob’s need to assert his power over others is a product of the discrimination he has experienced in the United States as a black man. The extra layer of complexity to this display of power as a web is that anyone can have access to it. This is evident in the relationship between Bob and white women. Bob feels that he can exert power over white women, as a man; however, white women also have access to this power as well. As both belong to groups that have been discriminated against in some way and have power used against them, they can be seen as trying to gain agency back by exerting power themselves.
Looking at this complex relationship through a Foucauldian lens, the world that Himes has depicted is one in which everyone is trying to use power in order to reestablish the sense of agency that has been taken from them; however, using the tools of their oppressors to essentially do the same thing, pushes them further in this descent into darkness.