Preliminary Observations

Easy is already a much more complex character than I was expecting. We get hints at his background, like how he once ripped the skin from a white boy’s face, that his parents were mere passersby in his life, and that he ran to the army to get away from Mouse. There is a long history that will slowly be revealed with the rest of this mystery. That, in my opinion, makes him the character I am most invested in, well that and that the line “They were just throwing money at me that day” made me laugh out loud for the first time reading for this class.

My only current observation that feels meaningful is that the only part of Mr. DeWitt that is not white is his gun. His whole business is sneaky and shady, so the white is masking a dark reality where the gun becomes the only visible sign of this dark truth. Daphne, Delia, Delilah, the one who cut Samson’s hair and brings about the downfall of a strong man. She is a treacherous and voluptuous woman, the perfect femme fatal. The femme fatal characters in the last few books have seemed less cut and dry like the ones we first read about. I do not know what she will be like, but it already seems to be more obvious and easier to root against her and for Easy.

The class dynamic in Devil in a Blue Dress will be worth noting, as they already stated the law was made by the rich to keep the poor down. Easy talks about how everyone works hard but remains on the bottom and goes to the bar to remember what it felt like to dream about California. In one of my classes, we talked about how when a lost home becomes part of your identity, you can never return there, or you will lose yourself to find it has been changed. The feelings toward California feel like a combination of this and of the nostalgia for something they do not remember correctly. I do not know how this will fit into the other Los Angeles narratives yet, but it will be interesting.