I was incredibly confused for a long time in this class. My first day was me “shopping” for classes after having a course cancelled a week into the semester. I did not have time to prepare, I did not know what noir was, and I felt like I barely managed to jump on the back of a train and was holding on for dear life. It took weeks for me to understand what noir was, and I certainly did not have anything to add because I felt like I was constantly trying to catch up. The second half of the semester things got better, but my lightbulb moment came over Thanksgiving break. For once I had time to just read all day and absorb the story slowly and analyze it, rather than trying to comprehend English, history, theology, and anthropology all at the same time. Devil in a Blue Dress connected everything. We got the classic femme fatal, the paranoia, the descent into darkness, the nostalgia, and the murder mystery. It embodied everything we discussed this semester, but it helped me realize the ways in which our other texts are still noir.
The other texts were not always as cut and dry as Devil in a Blue Dress, but the aspects I have been able to draw out highlight different aspects of black life and the realities of the darkness they live in. I came back to darkness many times in my posts because there was always some decent. That was the one thing I was able to pick out of every book. It defines the noir genre and the nature of humanity. Despite the way we think our life should go, other forces work to push toward the darkness. For the people that live in that darkness, they understand the relationship better. Sometimes they walk the line, sometimes they try to get out, and sometimes they descend further, but they all fight and intrigue and inspire this voyeuristic gaze that makes the noir genre impossible to ignore.